Anyone else take the ACS Organic test?

[dankev]

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My third quarter ochem final was yesterday, and it was the American Chemical Society standardized organic exam. I was just wondering if anyone else had that for a final.

It was fairly hard, but it seemed easier than our usual (read: sick) exams.

If anyone did take it, did you think it correlated with your MCAT bio score? Any other comments about it?

 

[ironey]

It was a fairly good correlation to my understanding of Organic Chemistry. I, too, thought the exam was easier than those my professor made up. However, I did very well.

It's hard to correlate the ACS exam with the MCAT. As you know, the MCAT bio section takes in your biology and A&P knowledge as well as the OChem. I had a bit of a deficit in the A&P department so I spent lots of my study time with that subject. Luckily, I had a great background in OChem and didn't have to study it at all.

PM me if you want to discuss actual numbers.

 

[CH3CH2OH]

hi, i haven't taken the exam yet, but it's coming up in two weeks. my teacher doesn't know much about it, in fact he's never seen it since he doesn't want to teach around this exam. so i was wondering what kind of questions did u guys have? how much, and what kind or memorization is required (pKas, names or reactions, nomeclature: IUPAC and common, etc.). in other words: what's the thing like?😕

 

[dankev]

The ACS publishes a book of study/practice questions. I found the thing pretty darn useful. I got a score I was super happy with, and I'm not so sure I would have without it. If you can't get your hands on that book, you pretty much need to know everything.

Honestly though, I felt my understanding of how ochem works helped me most on our usual exams, but for this one I felt like I relied more heavily on what I had simply memorized.

Good luck.

 

[brodaiga]

I had it about a month ago as my final in ochem. The format was a lot different than our regular tests being that ACS is multiple choice. I started studying 2 weeks before with the ACS book. Basically, I would get to a section in the study book, and before doing the problems, I would review that section in my text book and make sure I understand all the mechanisms and reactions. I would then work the problems in that section and record any tricks or nuances on a sheet of paper. The day before the final i went over all the study book using the nuances for the tricky questions I might have had problems with. You only need a 50 out of 70 to be in the 90th percentile, this is what I had to get to earn in the A in the course, and thankfully, my technique worked above.

P.S. Although I do not like guessing, it can help on this exam (there is no penalty), for instance: I found that on the test if I had absolutely no idea, or was trying to narrow it down, ussually two of the answers would have something in common that set them apart from the others, for example being conjugated alkenes, for me in 90% of cases, the right answer was one of the two. Again, I'm not advocating guessing, but on some of the questions you are unsure about, you can definitely use some logic. Hope this helps

 

[JM.]

I thought it stank, but I did ok on the MCAT. So who knows.