How did you memorize the Orgo reactions?

[AK911Carrera]

I'm having the hardest time with this.

Did you guys break it up like the Kaplan DAT book does or did you go another route?

I'd love to hear what helped everyone memorize each reaction!!

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[reely989]

Many people here seem to really like DAT Destroyer for learning organic. I just used Ohio State's flashcard website to learn all the reactions. It's helpful to me to just repetitively go through every one over and over. After a while it all started to click. For a lot of the alcohol/ketone/aldehyde/carboxylic acid stuff, I would look at Kaplan though, because it helps immensely with those once you figure out what reducing agents do to each one, and then it isn't just a string of reactions to memorize, you can usually simply predict what will happen.

 

[herkulease]

repetition. You see it enough that you well you know what it will do.

I made flash cards for my class so I use them.

If you have destroyer one way to learn them is when you get multistep problems.

don't just jot down the asnwer. go step by step.

A->B
B->C
C-> final product

 

[Jab1113]

make your own flashcards.

too lazy for that?

well,

http://pages.towson.edu/ladon/orgrxs/reactsum.htm

OR/AND

http://legacyweb.chemistry.ohio-state.edu/flashcards/

 

[Bis-GMA111]

if you learn some of the mechanisms and try to find recurring patterns, you'll be able to fly through reactions. just my 2 cents. hope this helps

 

[AK911Carrera]

make your own flashcards.

too lazy for that?

well,

http://pages.towson.edu/ladon/orgrxs/reactsum.htm

OR/AND

http://legacyweb.chemistry.ohio-state.edu/flashcards/

Thanks for all the reply guys! Seems the best way is to just go over them again and again.

And you can't be too lazy for DAT studying if you want a good score

 

[whodat4life]

What I did was to take Orgoman's "roadmaps" and just draw ALL of the reactions on notecards. Those are more than you'll see on the DAT. I scored a 21 in OC, and could have scored A LOT higher had I actually studied the NMR/IR stuff. Good luck!

 

[Leader813]

I'm having the hardest time with this.

Did you guys break it up like the Kaplan DAT book does or did you go another route?

I'd love to hear what helped everyone memorize each reaction!!

Everything attacks the carbonyl carbon!!!!

No but seriously, once you sit down and read how the reactions work, you will be able to see the general trends for the mechanisms. For me, I copied the reaction from the text, then tried to rewrite it a few times from memory. This worked for me but I'm a very visual learner. Show me how its done once maybe twice and then I' golden.

PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE & GOOD LUCK!!!

 

[yappy]

I think it's good to learn the way mechanism work in an O-chem class but I dont know if the DAT requires you to learn some of the long 5 step mechanisms. It seems like knowing what is attached and what the products look like along with regio and stereo specificity is enough....


what do you guys think who have taken the DAT?

 

[molar3]

to memorize rxns i made ALOTTTTT of flashcards. for every problem in destroyer i got wrong i made a flashcard. yes every question. and same with chads quizzes if i got any wrong.
then for the roadmaps i photocopied each one and then whited out the answers and practicied with pencil, and erased so i could reuse.
on my DAT last summer i had legit like 1 mechanism everything else was theory/facts/type questions. argh

 

[Desi Don]

Take one organic functional group write it in the middle of the paper....and make every possible functional groups you can out of it.....then make more functional groups out of the ones you already made and repeat the process for all the functional groups (i know this seems like crazy work but trust me its really not....these are called labyrinths i think)

you'll start to pinpoint the functional groups that are kind of universal (e.g. alcohol) that you can make almost anything out of it...soon enough you'll figure out what functional group you can use to make the one you need....and what are the functional groups that can be created from almost any functional group

repetition is the key...

 

[Maygyver]

Organic is a lot easier if you don't memorize. Go back in your book or try to remember what was actually happening and why. Hopefully when you learned it in undergrad you conceptualized different reactions rather than memorizing X---->Y. I guess if you never learned the concepts, straight repetition is going to be your best bet rather than relearning everything if time is getting short.

 

[Doc Smile]

Everything attacks the carbonyl carbon!!!!

No but seriously, once you sit down and read how the reactions work, you will be able to see the general trends for the mechanisms. For me, I copied the reaction from the text, then tried to rewrite it a few times from memory. This worked for me but I'm a very visual learner. Show me how its done once maybe twice and then I' golden.

PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE & GOOD LUCK!!!

Except for a strong base, a strong acid, etc

 

[invictusx]

Don't memorize. Understand them.

 

[dantemac]

if you learn some of the mechanisms and try to find recurring patterns, you'll be able to fly through reactions. just my 2 cents. hope this helps

Agreed; know the big trends. The ability to pick out a simple SN2 out of crazy non-existent rxns is key.

 

[invictusx]

It's a huge mistake to memorize these reactions. It's overwhelming. The best way to tackle this section is to draw out mechanisms

 

[reely989]

Maybe I'm just weird. I thought memorizing these reactions was much more time efficient. Of course, after you stare at enough of them, you figure out what's happening anyway, but I've always just been better at learning stuff like that through repetition.