The answer is B. Can someone explain?
I'm confused about why I and III are incorrect.
I'm confused about why I and III are incorrect.
N+1 rules applies to sp3 carbons, not sp2 for answer 3. The NMR of the compound technically has aromatic hydrogens with different coupling constants but that's not really mcat level nmr analysis. I would have said 6 at the mcat level, but they arent exactly the same...
http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~genette/NMRcoupling.pdf
Why doesn't n+1 apply to carbon 2?
As I understand it, the coupling constant J is for aromatic hydrogens. Ortho hydrogens split peaks more than meta hydrogens. If you have two ortho hydrogens, they can split the peak by the same distance twice and form a triplet.
I don't think any of that applies to carbon 2, does it?
Regarding choice III) Carbon 2 is an sp2 carbon and iirc n+1 does not apply for sp2 hybridized atoms.
Regarding choice I on why there are more than 6 nonequiv H's) Look up coupling.
Okay, so III is wrong because complex splitting is going on, right? Which means you will get a doublet of doublets...aka a multiplet. I still don't understand why saying that there are 6 non-equivalent Hs is wrong. Is it because of the direction of the carbonyl upwards which is spatially closer to the Hs higher up on the benzene ring?
According to the answer key posted in the other thread, it says because the whole molecule is conjugated (test it yourself - start pushing electrons from the far end of the phenyl), the rotation of the phenyl ring is slowed and the symmetry is eliminated. I don't think the MCAT will be testing you on this....