C-NMR on MCAT?

[dougkaye]

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EK has a cryptic "you might see C13-NMR on MCAT" but it doesn't appear on list of topics in AAMC official guide. Any need to learn C13 NMR? Obviously H-NMR is a topic that will probably appear.

 

[PiBond]

EK has a cryptic "you might see C13-NMR on MCAT" but it doesn't appear on list of topics in AAMC official guide. Any need to learn C13 NMR? Obviously H-NMR is a topic that will probably appear.

I was anticipating it on my MCAT back in the day. It's not too much different fundamentally than H-NMR in the sense that you need to be able to discern different chemical environments within a molecule; of course for carbon instead of hydrogen. There's also no splitting in CNMR. If you're adept at HNMR, you'll be fine for CNMR in my opinion.

 

[DougTPR]

I was anticipating it on my MCAT back in the day. It's not too much different fundamentally than H-NMR in the sense that you need to be able to discern different chemical environments within a molecule; of course for carbon instead of hydrogen. There's also no splitting in CNMR. If you're adept at HNMR, you'll be fine for CNMR in my opinion.

I will corroborate PiBond's answer.

There are essentially four concepts that are addressed for proton NMR.

1) The number of chemically inequivalent protons (the number of signals)

2) The splitting of said signals (coupling with neighboring protons)

3) The integration of said signals (the number of protons)

4) The chemical shift of said signals (proximity to pi bonds and electronegative atoms)

For carbon NMR only concepts 1 and 4 are relevant and you at most see concept 1 for carbon NMR on the MCAT.