The only way of mastering any topic in Organic Chemistry is doing lots of practice problems. And I know, seeing my students, that starting to work on a practice problem may be the hardest part as you don’t know where to start. It is difficult to visualize what where the double bond would be moved if you follow the five curved arrows crammed in one step. Here is the trick:
We are always told to think before doing something. Fair enough. But let me tell you, it is also strangely enough, that in Organic Chemistry, it is often better to draw and then think about what you did (not in the lab though). It is much easier to have a structure in front of you and check for errors and improvements.
Do the first step, take the pencil and you will see that the ball gets rolling.
You have all these Organic Chemistry Practice Problems waiting to be solved!
In this post, we will learn how to determine eh absolute configuration of allenes. We are, of course, talking about chiral allenes like, for example, this one: Chirality of Allenes In order for the allene to be chiral, … Read more
In the IUPAC nomenclature of carboxylic acids, we learned that their salts are named by replacing the suffix “ic acid” or “oic acid” with “ate”. For example, sodium acetate, potassium butyrate, etc. The good news is that esters follow the … Read more
In the IUPAC nomenclature, nitriles can be named by systematic and common nomenclature. Systematic Nomenclature of Nitriles In the systematic nomenclature, the suffix “nitrile” is simply added to the name of the parent alkane that contains the CN group. … Read more
Naming Primary Amides Before going over the principles of naming amides, recall that there are primary, secondary, and tertiary amides. Amides are derivatives of carboxylic acids, and if you have already read about the nomenclature of carboxylic acids, … Read more
In the previous few posts, we have talked about the nomenclature of carboxylic acid derivatives such as acids, esters, amides, nitriles, and also the strategy for naming compounds with multiple functional groups. Most of the following examples contain more than … Read more
In the IUPAC nomenclature, carboxylic acids are named by adding a suffix to the parent name of the longest chain. If the parent chain is noncyclic, you need to first find the longest carbon chain containing the -COOH group and change the … Read more
Before we start talking about naming bicyclic compounds, let’s first go over some terminology for their classification. Bicyclic compounds are a specific type of polycyclic compounds, classified as compounds that contain more than one ring with at least two common … Read more
Here are some practice problems for naming bicyclic compounds. Remember, to start numbering from one of the bridgehead carbon atoms. The numbering continues to include the largest ring towards the second bridgehead carbon, then the second-largest, and etc. (ring priority). … Read more
In the previous post, we talked about the standard valences and formal charges in organic chemistry. Today, we will focus on the number of lone pairs of electrons. While determining this is extensively covered in the Lewis structures and VSEPR … Read more
In the last few articles, we talked about the key electrophilic aromatic substitution reactions and the synthetic strategies based on the ortho, meta, para directing effects. Below is a summary of electrophilic aromatic substitution practice problems from different topics. … Read more
