Anybody in the same boat?

[JulianCrane]

I am just curious about the following: Did any of you do better in Orgo2 than in Orgo1? I think the material in Orgo2 is harder than Orgo1's, but somehow, I am making a better grade. How does this happen?

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[ValleyGal]

I'm there with you on that one -- much of orgo is just figuring out how to study (and for me that I actually had to study) Once you figure out to make flash cards and just sit down to memorize the stuff, it gets a lot easier.

 

[oldman]

i thought the second semester (at my school) of organic chemistry was easier because all the reactions were more unique. i didn't have to worry whether the reaction would be sn2,sn1,e1,e2. it was more distinct. the less of a gray area, the easier it was for me.

 

[MorningLight2100]

I can definitely relate. I think that when you first start Orgo, the material is just so different from anything to which you've previously been exposed, that it can knock you off guard. By the time you've reached Orgo 2, although the rxns are more complicated, you've developed enough fluency with the subject -- "chemical intuition," as one of my professors used to say -- that the topics just seem to come much easier. I don't know if you've had the same experience. . . but in Orgo 2, when I sat down to study a mechanism or rxn, I found that I could look at the reactants first, and then figure out the mechanism or product just based upon the concepts of nucleophilicity, sterics, etc. that I learned in the first semester, before going ahead and looking at the answer.

 

[otter]

I also thought the second semester was easier. I'm much better with the NMR and spectroscopy stuff than strictly learning one reaction after another. So, that part of Orgo II really boosted my grades.

 

[quake]

juliancrane..... the name sounds familiar... are you a fun of "passions"? Just curious.

 

[JulianCrane]

I am the hugest Passions fan! Hey, quake, who's your favorite character?

 

[quake]

JulianCrane, it shdn't be hard to guess your favorite character :wink:
Each of them seem to have some flaw. I guess that is what being human means. Tough question, I'll get back to u on this one

 

[Trek]

Same here..i went from a low C to an A!! I think i just liked the Orgo II teacher's style, plus the TAs were amazing and i actually understood what was going on. Either that or i became a non-******* in just one Christmas break! --Trek

 

[johnM]

yeah, I also did better in Ochem 2 than I did in the first part. my class might have been a little different though, the final for part 2 covered both semesters, and I think that i might have remembered stuff from the first semester better than some of the other people who did better than me the first time around. Maybe because I was reviewing it at the time for the MCAT. :wink: