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Organic in Kaplan, barebones eh?
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If you have taken or are taking organic chem it's better to just study your notes. You should have nomenclature down pat, especially alkanes to alcohol but you should also be able to recognize the other functional groups. For reactions, SN1, SN2 E1 and E2 are a definite must know. When I took the pcat they had reactions involving alcohols as well. Knowing as much organic chemistry as possible will really help boost your chem score.
I took organic almost 5 years ago, so its been a while
do you have any recommendation for supplemental texts?
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R
roanoke
I really like the MCAT Examkracker for Organic... it reviews more than enough for the PCAT and gets down to what you need to know. All reactions, nomenclature, NMR, IR, etc. It's about 145 pages long and you can also buy the 1001 questions to go with it. I found it helpful since i took organic over 10 years ago.
When I took the pcat in June, I had nomenclature and reactions (some of which were from organic 2). I really think that organic chem was responsible for boosting up my chem score. I was nervous about the gen chem part but knowing my organic chem reactions and basics gave me a little confidence, especially when I saw my test.
I've never used examcrackers but I've read really good reviews about it. I would skip the NMR and IR part though. For reactions, concentrate on mastering the organic 1 reactions first. Those are more likely to be on the exam than organic 2. But if you have time,you can also review basic organic 2 reactions.
Every version of the PCAT in Oct had ochem reactions, it's just that some had a few easy ones and some had many hard ones. The best review I saw for Ochem was the Kaplan book that you get in the classroom course, not the one you buy at the book store.
Hi..
I took the PCAT Kaplan Online course so I have the materials from there. However, I recently checked out from the library the 2007 Kaplan PCAT Edition from the library and compared the two books. While the majority is the same, the Organic section from the non-class book lacks about 90% of what is included in the book supplied by the course. Of course, I think a lot of what was included in the class book was superfluous (at least according to what was on my pcat). However, if you rely solely on the limited material in the non-class book, I think you're at a disadvantage because, as you noted, it's really "barebones." Having said that, it's not necessary that you purchase the Kaplan course solely to gain access to all the missing Organic mateiral; I'd look at the Exam Krackers (which is still overkill for pcat organic, in my opinion based on my test) or really any Orgo chem review book or text and go through the main topics. Although the amount of o-chem varies on each test, it's better to be prepared while still remembering that this is not an o-chem exam, so you're not going to have to know the material to the same extent.
I took the PCAT Kaplan Online course so I have the materials from there. However, I recently checked out from the library the 2007 Kaplan PCAT Edition from the library and compared the two books. While the majority is the same, the Organic section from the non-class book lacks about 90% of what is included in the book supplied by the course. Of course, I think a lot of what was included in the class book was superfluous (at least according to what was on my pcat). However, if you rely solely on the limited material in the non-class book, I think you're at a disadvantage because, as you noted, it's really "barebones." Having said that, it's not necessary that you purchase the Kaplan course solely to gain access to all the missing Organic mateiral; I'd look at the Exam Krackers (which is still overkill for pcat organic, in my opinion based on my test) or really any Orgo chem review book or text and go through the main topics. Although the amount of o-chem varies on each test, it's better to be prepared while still remembering that this is not an o-chem exam, so you're not going to have to know the material to the same extent.
Always use ur text because review books generally do not explain things just give examples. Nomeclatur is every simple actually, the ochem teachers make u name things a LOT harder.
Try CLiffs OCHem review, it's easier to understand than Kaplan which I truly hate.
Try CLiffs OCHem review, it's easier to understand than Kaplan which I truly hate.
The chem section was a big blur for me but I remember questions like this reacts with this- which one will be produced? So definetly know how to detemine products. It's been a few years since I had Orgo and I just studied from my old text. I thought the chem section SUCKED. 😡
Good luck!
Good luck!
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