How do you study for orgo II?

[xforeverlove21]

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I went over the class notes and basically memorized everything. Than I did some of the assignment questions (pretty sure I kept looking at the solutions). Than I did a practice midterm. I ended up doing poorly on my midterm. What should I do different next time so I can ace midterm 2 & final

 

[aldol16]

Stop memorizing things and try to understand how all the mechanisms work. Draw them and rationalize them to yourself. That'll get you to start applying your knowledge instead of regurgitating it. You should do better on your practice exam then.

 

[theonlytycrane]

Study consistently everyday from now until the end of the quarter / semester.

Memorize: all key reagents, reactions, and molecules you're expected to know. If your prof gives a reagent list, know what everything does.

Spend most of your time understanding how each reaction works and doing practice problems, similar to your test problems if your professor offers them.

Don't avoid the harder problems like retrosynthesis or spectroscopy.

 

[stickgirl390]

Practice practice practice. If you're already behind, shoot for 3-4 hours of good studying every day.

I had a solid study group for Orgo II. We would alternate writing reactants on the board and another person would write the products. Then we would discuss why the answer was correct or incorrect. Rinse and repeat for hours.

And no joke, it helps to have a dog in the room to reduce stress. Good luck!

 

[Azete]

Practice practice practice. If you're already behind, shoot for 3-4 hours of good studying every day.

I had a solid study group for Orgo II. We would alternate writing reactants on the board and another person would write the products. Then we would discuss why the answer was correct or incorrect. Rinse and repeat for hours.

And no joke, it helps to have a dog in the room to reduce stress. Good luck!

Would not recommend this. If you need to allocate 20-25 hours a week to do well in one class then this person would likely be miserable in med school.

 

[stickgirl390]

Would not recommend this. If you need to allocate 20-25 hours a week to do well in one class then this person would likely be miserable in med school.

1 hour a day is not enough for orgo, so 2 hrs would be good for an average student. If you're already behind with half the semester over, 3 hours a day is exactly where you need to be.

 

[aldol16]

Agree. Go back to basics; definitely stop thinking about memorizing. The entire course is about electrons (bonding, acid-base equilibria and pKa, nucleophilicity), so go back and make sure you understand what makes electrons move and why they have higher affinity for some atoms than others. Everything bears itself out from there: reactivity trends, mechanisms, reagents required to create certain reaction conditions, etc. are all consequences of how willingly electrons move around.

Well, in this sense, Orgo is a perfect representation of what chemistry is - just sterics and electronics. Understand both and you've mastered chemistry 🙂

 

[aldol16]

1 hour a day is not enough for orgo, so 2 hrs would be good for an average student. If you're already behind with half the semester over, 3 hours a day is exactly where you need to be.

Hours is a terrible way to measure how much one should study for a class. One could "study" for 3 hours but if one has inefficient studying habits (e.g. Facebook, YouTube, Netflix, text messaging, etc.), then even 3 hours wouldn't be enough. Conversely, if one is incredibly efficient and a quick/natural learner of chemistry, then 1 hour a day is sufficient. Prep work for a class shouldn't take much more than twice the amount of time you spend in class, on average. Assuming three 1.5 hour lectures a week, that would be 9 hours of studying for Orgo a week, which would average to around 80 minutes a day.

 

[Azete]

1 hour a day is not enough for orgo, so 2 hrs would be good for an average student. If you're already behind with half the semester over, 3 hours a day is exactly where you need to be.

I'd say even 1 hour a day is overkill, unless you're including labs. If you have 3, 1 hour lectures per week then you need to be able to master each lecture in <1.5 hours of outside class time --- so 4-5 hours a week max.

Why do I say this? Because med school lectures are even more dense and you don't have enough hours in a day to allocate more than this. It's better to develop the study efficiency now, rather than struggle later.

For someone struggling with O-Chem, I'd recommend reading Organic Chemistry as a Second Language or the coursesaver videos (these are well worth the money). If it still doesn't click, or they need to spend 20+ hours a week just for a B, then it's time to cut their losses and move on to something else.

 

[Ho0v-man]

I read the textbook and then worked every problem in the back. It's not rote memorization biology and it's not plug and chug physics. It's some kind of nuanced homunculus of the two. If it's the mechanisms are the problem, wiki premed has some decent free vids to explain them in physics/general chemistry terms.


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[kay815]

Whiteboards, repetition. Understand why things are happening in a mechanism. Good luck.

 

[To be MD]

Organic Chemistry as a 2nd Language on Amazon