How to study for Organic Chemistry

[euphaire]

Hi
I'm an engineering student and so far studying for the organic chemistry section is not going well for me. I tried so hard at memorizing and understanding the reactions. I wrote them down. I did practice questions. I did practice exams. I fail horribly. Each one of them..I fail everytime when given a random reaction and asked what the products are.
It's so easy to get the concepts mixed up. I also find that I tend to get very confused when a reaction could have several possible outcomes (they compete). I cannot decide which. Organic chemistry has made me lose sleep.
Thanks for your advice in advance! If you have a list of all reactions I need to know for the OAT and don't mind sharing, please PM me or reply here

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[kiwi5frog]

Hi
I'm an engineering student and so far studying for the organic chemistry section is not going well for me. I tried so hard at memorizing and understanding the reactions. I wrote them down. I did practice questions. I did practice exams. I fail horribly. Each one of them..I fail everytime when given a random reaction and asked what the products are.
It's so easy to get the concepts mixed up. I also find that I tend to get very confused when a reaction could have several possible outcomes (they compete). I cannot decide which. Organic chemistry has made me lose sleep.
Thanks for your advice in advance! If you have a list of all reactions I need to know for the OAT and don't mind sharing, please PM me or reply here

I remember O chem making me lose a lot of sleep too. when working in the Destroyer, i got every single question wrong and that was really discouraging. working Kaplan I was getting only 50% right and i guessed half the time.

What I found out was the O chem on the OAT was nothing like both. It was several times easier with more focus on naming (ie williamson ether synthesis). in the end i got a 360. So...i'm thinking you should be cautious about where you are getting your practice problems from. they may be excessively difficult to "prepare you better" so they say. i did not appreciate the exaggerated difficulty

 

[OptomHope]

Hi
I'm an engineering student and so far studying for the organic chemistry section is not going well for me. I tried so hard at memorizing and understanding the reactions. I wrote them down. I did practice questions. I did practice exams. I fail horribly. Each one of them..I fail everytime when given a random reaction and asked what the products are.
It's so easy to get the concepts mixed up. I also find that I tend to get very confused when a reaction could have several possible outcomes (they compete). I cannot decide which. Organic chemistry has made me lose sleep.
Thanks for your advice in advance! If you have a list of all reactions I need to know for the OAT and don't mind sharing, please PM me or reply here

So I was not a very strong O-chem student when i took the course (got low 70but ended up with a 380 on the O-chem section on the OAT!

Here is what I did, keep in mind i studied for 2.5 months for the OAT and a large chunk of my time was spent on O-chem:

1) Used these videos http://www.freelance-teacher.com/videos.htm amazing teacher, I literally watched each and every O-chem video that would be on the test and made notes during and reviewed them after. Really make sure that when he tells you to "pause" the video and try teh problem on your own, that you do it!! At some points i found he was going too slow and too repetitive so i ffwd'ed but I can't complain because he just wants to help as much as possible. This is the ONLY material (besides the Kaplan OAT) that I used to study for the O-chem section

2) After I watched a video series for a certain topic, I would go through the Kaplan OAT book and try to do all the O-chem questions on that topic. This really helped to reinforce what I just learned

don't worry too much about knowing a lot of specific reagents/ SN1 and SN2 mechanics, etc.. just know the basics of every topic and you will do great!

 

[euphaire]

Thank you guys! I have hope again ^^

 

[naearls]

Hi
I tried so hard at memorizing and understanding the reactions. I wrote them down.

Do not try to memorize ochem. Ask any org prof and they will tell you that that is the biggest mistake people make. Instead, learn the rules and concepts that govern reactions. If you can identify acids, bases, electrophiles, and nucleophiles and what strengthens or weakens them then you are already halfway there. The actual test does not have that many reactions, but hinges a lot on the concepts that govern organic chemistry. Only thing I really memorized were a few oxidizers and reducers and the conditions that favor certain types of reactions. This helped a bit, but a focus on the concepts is what will bring you through.

 

[Strag]

You could try the OAT Destroyer and Chad's Videos!