How to Ace Organic Chem

[StraightShooter]

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Are there any online lectures that I can watch; I looked at MIT but those are all old.

And how did you ace orgo? I really want to ace it, and have a big schedule so I need to get a cracking!

 

[kpcrew]

Draw out the mechanisms from memory, making sure you understand how and why electrons move. When you look at reactions, don't just memorize that this chemical does this but go for understanding. You want to know why it does what it does and how it works to achieve those effects. I doubt that introductory organic chemistry changed in the last 10 years but you can check out khan academy.

 

[AznSeal]

wiley is pretty awesome

Memorize the mechanisms behind the reactions and understand why they happen

 

[circulus vitios]

The key is to lower your expectations. I aced organic chemistry with a B. 😎

 

[dgsilvervid]

There is a small book called pushing electrons its pretty great work through it in the first week or so of class that will help a lot. Understanding how to use the periodic table is also crucial. Practice mechanisms.

 

[Bamfu]

Start with good basics. If you don't really fully understand orbitals and hybridization to start, it will come back to bite you later. And yeah, if you understand instead of memorize, you don't have to memorize later.

I personally got to a point to where I'd see named reactions in organic 2 and predict what would happen before the prof actually told us when we were going over it for the first time. I practiced a lot of synthesis problems in my text book before tests and did not move on in my studying until I understood. Whoever said that earlier in this thread gave the best advice - truly understand everything instead of memorizing.

 

[Bangersandmash]

Memorize very little and understand (conceptually) everything. Understanding why mechanisms worked the way they did allowed me to figure out mechanisms for similar, yet slightly different, compounds and reactions without ever seeing them or memorizing them exactly.

Do a lot of practice problems, both mechanistic and synthesis, and make flash cards for reagents. When Orgo 2 comes around, the hardest part is getting a handle on which reagent does what (and you'll have tons of reagents to learn). Still, understanding why will go a lot further than memorizing each reagent individually, as many are related and do similar things.