Hybridization Shortcut

• “Initial Tails” and “Final Heads”
• 3 Ways To Make OH A Better Leaving Group
• A Simple Formula For 7 Important Aldehyde/Ketone Reactions
• Acetoacetic
• Acids (Again!)
• Activating and Deactivating
• Actors In Every Acid Base Reaction
• Addition – Elimination
• Addition Pattern 1 – Carbocations
• Addition pattern 2 – 3 membered rings
• Addition Reactions
• Aldehydes And Ketones – Addition
• Alkene Pattern #3 – The “Concerted” Pathway
• Alkyl Rearrangements
• Alkynes – 3 Patterns
• Alkynes: Deprotonation and SN2
• Amines
• Aromaticity: Lone Pairs
• Avoid These Resonance Mistakes
• Best Way To Form Amines
• Bulky Bases
• Carbocation Stability
• Carbocation Stability Revisited
• Carboxylic Acids are Acids
• Chair Flips
• Cis and Trans
• Conformations
• Conjugate Addition
• Curved Arrow Refresher
• Curved Arrows
• Decarboxylation
• Determining Aromaticity
• Diels Alder Reaction – 1
• Dipoles: Polar vs. Covalent Bonding
• E2 Reactions
• Electronegativity Is Greed For Electrons
• Electrophilic Aromatic Substitution – Directing Groups
• Elimination Reactions
• Enantiocats and Diastereocats
• Enolates
• Epoxides – Basic and Acidic
• Evaluating Resonance Forms
• Figuring Out The Fischer
• Find That Which Is Hidden
• Formal Charge
• Frost Circles
• Gabriel Synthesis
• Grignards
• Hofmann Elimination
• How Acidity and Basicity Are Related
• How Are These Molecules Related?
• How Stereochemistry matters
• How To Stabilize Negative Charge
• How To Tell Enantiomers From Diastereomers
• Hybridization
• Hybridization Shortcut
• Hydroboration
• Imines and Enamines
• Importance of Stereochemistry
• Intermolecular Forces
• Intro to Resonance
• Ketones on Acid
• Kinetic Thermodynamic
• Making Alcohols Into Good Leaving Groups
• Markovnikov’s rule
• Mechanisms Like Chords
• Mish Mashamine
• More On The E2
• Newman Projections
• Nucleophiles & Electrophiles
• Nucleophilic Aromatic Substitution
• Nucleophilic Aromatic Substitution 2
• Order of Operations!
• Oxidation And Reduction
• Oxidative Cleavage
• Paped
• Pi Donation
• Pointers on Free Radical Reactions
• Protecting Groups
• Protecting Groups
• Proton Transfer
• Putting it together (1)
• Putting it together (2)
• Putting it together (3)
• Putting the Newman into ACTION
• Reaction Maps
• Rearrangements
• Recognizing Endo and Exo
• Redraw / Modify
• Robinson Annulation
• Robinson Annulation Mech
• Sigma and Pi Bonding
• SN1 vs SN2
• sn1/sn2 – Putting It Together
• sn1/sn2/e1/e2 – Exceptions
• sn1/sn2/e1/e2 – Nucleophile
• sn1/sn2/e1/e2 – Solvent
• sn1/sn2/e1/e2 – Substrate
• sn1/sn2/e1/e2 – Temperature
• Stereochemistry
• Strong Acid Strong Base
• Strong And Weak Oxidants
• Strong and Weak Reductants
• Stronger Donor Wins
• Substitution
• Sugars (2)
• Synthesis (1) – “What’s Different?”
• Synthesis (2) – What Reactions?
• Synthesis (3) – Figuring Out The Order
• Synthesis Part 1
• Synthesis Study Buddy
• Synthesis: Walkthrough of A Sample Problem
• Synthesis: Working Backwards
• t-butyl
• Tautomerism
• The 4 Actors In Every Acid-Base Reaction
  • Conjugation
• The Claisen Condensation
• The E1 Reaction
• The Inflection Point
• The Meso Trap
• The Michael Reaction
• The Nucleophile Adds Twice (to the ester)
• The One-Sentence Summary Of Chemistry
• The Second Most Important Carbonyl Mechanism
• The Single Swap Rule
• The SN1 Reaction
• The SN2 Reaction
• The Wittig Reaction
• Three Exam Tips
• Tips On Building Molecular Orbitals
• Top 10 Skills
• Try The Acid-Base Reaction First
• Two Key Reactions of Enolates
• What makes a good leaving group?
• What Makes A Good Nucleophile?
• What to expect in Org 2
• Work Backwards
• Zaitsev’s Rule

Here’s a shortcut for figuring out the hybridization of an atom in a molecule. This will save you a lot of time.

Here’s what you do:

Look at the atom.

Count the number of atoms connected to it.

Count the number of lone pairs attached to it.

Add these two numbers together.

• If it’s 4, your atom is sp³.
• If it’s 3, your atom is sp².
• If it’s 2, your atom is sp. 

(If it’s 1, it’s probably hydrogen!)
(There’s exceptions, but you usually don’t meet them until Org 2 – if the word “aromaticity” means nothing to you as a chemistry concept, don’t worry about it for now).

Try it out here. Don’t worry if the molecule looks a little crazy: just focus on the individual atoms that the arrows point to (A, B, C, D, E). A and B especially.  If you haven’t learned line diagrams yet (and “hidden” hydrogens) maybe come back to this later.

Thanks for reading! James