Three Exam Tips
- “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
- 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
No doubt you’ve got some important exams coming up. With that in mind, here’s three simple tactics you can use during exams.
1. Draw partial charges
If you get complete brain-lock during a question, try drawing out the partial charges. Ask yourself what the most electronegative atoms in the molecule are.
The most electronegative atoms (e.g. oxygen, nitrogen, chlorine) are generally going to have partial negative charges on them, while carbons that they’re bonded to will have partial positive charges. This will help in identifying potential nucleophiles and electrophiles. And since opposite charges attract, this can help you figure out where the any reactions might occur – a handy thing to know when you’re stuck.
2. Draw in hidden hydrogens and lone pairs.
Remember that we often – for reasons of laziness – won’t draw in the “hidden” hydrogens and lone pairs that are present on atoms. If a problem is giving you a hard time, draw them in. This especially goes for mechanism questions and synthesis questions, since you’ll really want to be able to see everything that’s going on. Sometimes just a little clue like you’ve lost (or gained) a hydrogen on a certain atom can be the crucial piece of information that moves you forward.
3. Number your carbons.
It’s hard enough to understand what reaction you’re looking at and how it might work. What really hurts is getting the answer right, but losing grades because you skipped drawing in an atom or two. If you number your carbons, you’ll greatly decrease the chances of making simple mistakes like this. Even after all these years, I still make little mistakes. The difference is that I know how easy they are to make that I’m 10 times more paranoid about making them than normal people are.
The other nice thing about this technique is that it’s a little brainless. You can do it – and it’s useful – while actively thinking about how to do the problem.
What are some of your best organic chemistry study tips? Share them in the comments below!
James