O Chem rxns and Gen chem formulas

[Ryltar]

1. How well do you have to know the reaction ingredients for reactions, as in do you have to know the individual solvents, etc for reactions? So when I create my reaction flash cards should I create them with reactants and product, and put the reaction ingredients on the back, or should I create them with reactants and reaction ingredients, and put the product on the back?

2. There are a lot of formulas in Kaplan gen chem that are not covered by destroyer (e.g. Formulas involving Plancks constant, which I would consider rather important but not covered in destroyer; however, there are a lot of rather random formulas in Kaplans that I'm not sure are worth memorizing. Should I mainly focus on the equations in destroyer?

Thanks!

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[cyrano]

I'm not certain, but as to your first point I believe it's important to know what type of solvents work best for certain reactions because the same chemicals may react differently depending on the solution. Also, the solutions can often be a dead give away as to what type of reaction you're looking at. Someone else can probably give you a more detailed and informational answer though.

 

[Ryltar]

You should definitely know solvents for SN/E mechanisms. I guess I'll go ahead and memorize all rxns in full. I learned them that way in my Ochem class, so it shouldn't take too long. My organic chem teacher sometimes gave 14-15 rxn step roadmap problems on tests, also providing predicted IR/MS/CNMR/HNMR readings at each step. It was ridiculous, lol.

As for the chem rxns, I'll probably memorize all but the really obscure ones.

 

[Broncos85]

For your first question i would put your reacants and solvents on the front of the card and the product on the back. However, i would memorize all the solvents that that promote Sn1, Sn2, or the bases needed in E1 and E2. Also for E1 and E2 what bases would give hoffman or zaitsev products.

For the chem formulas i would memorize all but the very obscure ones that you don't ever seen used in problems or solutions. But if it were me I would use destroyer as your guide to which formulas are important

Good luck with studying

 

[brightsmiles9]

I came across the same problem with Kaplan, but it never hurts studying both. Kaplan is good, but the Destroyer is strong. The roadmaps in the destroyer are golden, so I would recommend to know both the solvents and the reactants and basically all the different reactions found on those roadmaps, that should give you a strong idea on a lot of the different types of possible reactions. Hope that helps, best wishes!

 

[Ryltar]

Thanks guys, I think I'm pretty much set on O chem rxns then. I'll just continue to review them every other day until the test.

What concerns me is that formulas involving Planck's constant are nowhere to be found in practice tests/destroyer, yet I would consider pretty important formulas to know.