How important are all of the organic reactions from orgo 2

[deleted647690]

I remember covering a lot of reactions throughout both orgo I and II, and to be honest, I don't remember a single one of them. I would not be able to tell you what the product would be if you gave me any set of reactants (except maybe HBr). In my BR book, I've had a good amount of practice problems where it seems like the only way to get the right answer is if you know the reaction.
For example, "How would the H NMR spec and IR spec change when 2-pentanol is treated with CrO3 and H2SO4?" From the passage, I know that this causes oxidation, but I know nothing else. I did not remember that a secondary alcohol would be oxidized into a ketone, so I got this wrong.

I do remember covering some sort of sequence of oxidations, but I was most likely cramming that into my short term memory before an exam haha

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[alpha-GTP]

For the MCAT, I would focus on the reactions that have biological significance. This would be anything related to carbonyls, carbohydrates, anything related to stereochemistry, and SN2. I would spend minimal amounts of time on anything else.

 

[miasdontwork]

I remember covering a lot of reactions throughout both orgo I and II, and to be honest, I don't remember a single one of them. I would not be able to tell you what the product would be if you gave me any set of reactants (except maybe HBr). In my BR book, I've had a good amount of practice problems where it seems like the only way to get the right answer is if you know the reaction.
For example, "How would the H NMR spec and IR spec change when 2-pentanol is treated with CrO3 and H2SO4?" From the passage, I know that this causes oxidation, but I know nothing else. I did not remember that a secondary alcohol would be oxidized into a ketone, so I got this wrong.

I do remember covering some sort of sequence of oxidations, but I was most likely cramming that into my short term memory before an exam haha

Knowing Reduction and oxidation agents is fairly quick to learn, and knowing IR and (I believe) H NMR key functional group absorbances is fairly quick to learn too.
CrO3 is an oxidizing agent which will oxidize the alcohol to a carboxylic acid, which on IR will change from 3300cm-1 to 3000cm-1. Not sure what the H NMR numbers are though.

 

[premedkid1994]

you just need the two chapters on ek about ochem to do well.

everybody should know the ranges on IR though, they're not that difficult just in case a discrete question comes up.

 

[GypsyHummus]

Honestly, I only had orgo 1 going into the MCAT, and I felt that it was sufficient for what they asked of us.

However, KNOW IR spectroscopy. I had like 5 questions about it on my test and figured that it was not high yield.