What You Should Be Able to Do

Early in the Fall, we discussed our goals for this course in a fairly general way. Here, we shall define them in terms of the kinds of problems we should be able to solve. If you will look back over the prelims and the posted previous exams, you will see that every question fits into one of a half-dozen or so categories.

  1. Deduce the structural formula of an unknown organic compound from spectroscopic and chemical data.

    Here is a logical procedure to follow in working structure problems.

  2. Given the structural formula of an organic compound, describe the detailed, three-dimensional structure of the molecule;

    Here's an example:

  3. Write structural formulas for the reaction products arising from treatment of the molecule with any of a variety of reagents;

    Here's a logical procedure to follow for doing this:

  4. Show how bonds are made and broken as a reaction occurs - that is, write all steps of the mechanism of the reaction

    Here's a page on writing reaction mechanisms:

  5. Explain how structural variations would affect the reactivity of the molecule (the rate of reaction or the position of equilibrium)

  6. Design reaction paths by which a variety of moderately complex organic molecules may be prepared from simpler, readily available compounds, using retrosynthetic analysis

    Here's a summary of the way to think through these problems:

  7. Show sufficient familiarity with the language of organic chemistry to communicate clearly and accurately your knowledge of the above items;

  8. Here's a brief discussion of what we mean by "language"

This page last modified 2:52 PM on Friday November 20th, 2009.
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