Orgo on MCAT (Things that are absolutely necessary to memorized)

[vinniekan]

So just as knowing hormones (what kind, where they're synthesized, where they affect...etc.) is important for the biology portion of the MCAT, what is absolutely needed to be memorize in terms of reactions (ie. regents, catalysts...ect.)? I can't seem to memorize everything they listed on the topic list and Kaplan books seems to just cover every reaction there is and not tell you which ones are absolutely essential...also do you need to memorize all the EDGs & EWGs?

Also aside from the basic orgo stuff like functional groups, nomenclature, chirality, orientations, lab techniques, what else are deemed as absolutely needed?

Thanks in advance!

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[rockaction]

Reagents I'd make sure I know:

PCC (CrO3 + pyridine) - weak oxidizing agent (OH -> aldehyde)
NaBH4, LiAlH4 - reducing agents (produce hydrogen nucleophiles)
H2 - reducing agent (adds Hs across double bonds)
SOCl2 - converts alcohols to acyl chlorides and carboxylic acids to acid chlorides
Strong acids + alcohols - dehydration reactions
O3 - ozonolysis
HNO3 - adds a nitro (NO2) group to a benzene ring

Solvents I'd make sure I know:

Grignards - ethers
Sn2 - DMSO, THF, polar aprotic solvents

Not a comprehensive list but that's stuff I was glad I remembered while taking practice tests and studying.

The organic for the MCAT is surprisingly simple in most cases. Make sure you can correctly categorize reactions as electrophilic addition, nucleophilic substitution, etc. etc. because for some reason they like that.

 

[grotto]

Aldol reactions and carbonyl chemistry in particular - I would know this cold. Basically anything that can create a carbon carbon bond (obvious relation to biochemistry), also hemiacetals, acetals, etc.

Electron donating and withdrawing groups on benzene rings and how they affect acidity. I always forget that a methyl group is a donating group. I haven't seen a ton of aromatic chem on the test though but understanding electron flow is obviously important to ochem in general.

KMn04 - strong oxidizing agent (Just remember that anything that has Oxygen on the end is an oxidizer and anything that has H on the end is a reducing agent - *except for PCC - but this actually does have oxygen on the end*)

IR major peaks (3300 br - OH) 1750 (C=O) - there are a few harder than this on the practice tests but you can usually figure them out by elimination.

H-NMR - know the basics, I've never seen a super hard one

Mass Spec - super basic (first ion (furthest to the right) gives the molecular weight

 

[vinniekan]

thanks for the advices!

never realized the aldol reaction was important...until i googled it

 

[Mattabet]

All the above looks like good stuff. I'd commit as much as I could to memory. The nice thing about orgo questions is they tend to be a little forgiving for memory retrieval issues. If you have a solid foundation, there's usually a couple different ways to reason out the answer. So even if you forget the exact nature of a reagent, you may be able to get around to the correct answer by knowing something about, say, and IR spec.