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So after going through a million of practice questions on Kaplan, Pearson, Collins and some free resources I get a feeling that orgo questions on PCAT are pretty basic. However, they can be very hard for people who haven't taken orgo. I just wanted to name some of the topics that you could read on in case you haven't taking two semesters of ochem.
THE LIST COMES FROM MY PERSONAL EXPERIENCE WITH LOTS OF PRACTICE TESTS. PLEASE, USE IT AT YOUR OWN DISCRETION.
For those who have taken PCAT already, feel free to add/adjust this since I haven't taken the actual test just yet.
So here are my most encountered topics on the practice exams (I'm sure Khan academy and others have a bunch of videos on these subjects):
1. Sn1/SN2 : "which one will work for certain reagents" or "which reagent will work the fastest" type of questions.
2. Aromatic Nucleophilic Substitution. Ortho/para vs meta directors
3. Nomenclature: the main name comes from the most oxidized functional group. the difficulty seems to be at that level. Main FG encountered are aldehyde, ketone, ester, ether, carboxylic acid and its derivatives. I've seen a lot of practice questions which try to trick you by giving ester and carboxylic acid and asking if there is alcohol.ether and ketone.
4. Grignard reaction.
5. Aldol Addition/Condensation reaction
6. Oxidation reagents : pretty much anything with Cr in it
7. Reducing agents: NaBH4 - weak and stops at alcohol/ LiAlH4 strong goes all the way to COOH.
8. H2/metal - syn addition of H to the double bond
9. Oxidative cleavage: C=C -> C=O
10. Aromaticity
11. Going from COOH to OH and back. Going to and from COOH derivatives.
I'm not saying that other topics could not be on the exam but these are the fundamental ( IMO ) subjects for orgo I/II. I can't imagine an orgo test without at least some of these topics.
Hope this can helps people without ochem background
THE LIST COMES FROM MY PERSONAL EXPERIENCE WITH LOTS OF PRACTICE TESTS. PLEASE, USE IT AT YOUR OWN DISCRETION.
For those who have taken PCAT already, feel free to add/adjust this since I haven't taken the actual test just yet.
So here are my most encountered topics on the practice exams (I'm sure Khan academy and others have a bunch of videos on these subjects):
1. Sn1/SN2 : "which one will work for certain reagents" or "which reagent will work the fastest" type of questions.
2. Aromatic Nucleophilic Substitution. Ortho/para vs meta directors
3. Nomenclature: the main name comes from the most oxidized functional group. the difficulty seems to be at that level. Main FG encountered are aldehyde, ketone, ester, ether, carboxylic acid and its derivatives. I've seen a lot of practice questions which try to trick you by giving ester and carboxylic acid and asking if there is alcohol.ether and ketone.
4. Grignard reaction.
5. Aldol Addition/Condensation reaction
6. Oxidation reagents : pretty much anything with Cr in it
7. Reducing agents: NaBH4 - weak and stops at alcohol/ LiAlH4 strong goes all the way to COOH.
8. H2/metal - syn addition of H to the double bond
9. Oxidative cleavage: C=C -> C=O
10. Aromaticity
11. Going from COOH to OH and back. Going to and from COOH derivatives.
I'm not saying that other topics could not be on the exam but these are the fundamental ( IMO ) subjects for orgo I/II. I can't imagine an orgo test without at least some of these topics.
Hope this can helps people without ochem background