Organic Chemistry is famous for being the ‘weed-out’ class at universities. Horror stories are thrown around all the time. The reality is that it is a regular class with a different type of material to learn. It only takes more effort than a comparable-level science course because moving electrons and atoms around is a new concept and ‘feeling’.
For understanding Organic Chemistry I recommend Organic Chemistry as a Second Language by David Klein. It was with me every time I studied Organic Chemistry I and helped make sense of the new ideas and techniques necessary to complete Organic Chemistry problems. $30 is a reasonable price for the book considering a tutor could charge $20 for one hour.
Organic Chemistry is different. The best approach I have found is to utilize good In-Class Techniques, SRS cards, and practice problems. This is the class where I realized the benefits of removing oneself from the competition loop and avoiding complaining. It would be helpful to read both of those articles before practicing the information found in this one. Also check out the basic class models for a better understanding of making cards.
To solve and understand Organic Chemistry thoroughly, it is necessary to memorize the information. Fortunately with SRS this is fast and easy. While it is necessary to ‘understand’ Organic Chemistry, it is impossible to reason through problems without having many other reactions and information memorized. This makes SRS a perfect tool to learn Organic Chemistry with.
As another note, the program I use for all of these drawings and for making SRS cards is called ChemSketch. It is free and easy to use. Instructions on how to use it for SRS purposes is found in the article Organic Chemistry: Using ChemSketch to Make Molecule Drawings.
Basic Reactions
The basic reaction cards will be the most common. They are simple and effective. Simply make the full reaction and place it in the “Back” slot on the card. Occlude the part of the reaction that you want to memorize and place that picture in the “Front”. This is usually the reagent or product. Sometimes it is good to make two cards, one with the reagent occluded and one with the product occluded.
Front:
Back:
Front:
Back:
Practice problems are a great source of example reactions! I found it is useful to just keep it to one reaction per card. To do long synthesis problems it is important to just know the smaller reactions that they list.
Basic Facts
Organic Chemistry does have some basic facts to memorize. Most of these deal with SN1/SN2, E1/E2 material – and some stereochemistry. Remember to stick to one fact per card.
Front: SN2 prefers […] solvents
Back: SN2 prefers protic solvents
Front: […amount] substituted alkenes are more stable
Back: More substituted alkenes are more stable
Front: Ground-state Nitrogen has […#] bonds
Back: Ground-state Nitrogen has 3 bonds
Reaction with Detail
To memorize the name of a reaction simply include it below the picture of the reaction.
Front:
[…]
Back:
Hydroboration
Reaction Mechanisms
Reaction mechanisms are doable in the SRS. I believe they are best learned by using the SRS in conjunction with writing the information out and never making mistakes. Cards can be made for each step of long reaction mechanisms. Here is a simple example:
Front:
Back:
These models will make it through most of Organic Chemistry. For more specific topics check out the articles on Stereochemistry and IR/NMR Readings.
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Just wondering – how did you create those diagrams?
Hey Thomas,
I used ChemSketch. It is a free program available here: http://www.acdlabs.com/chemsketch
It is free and quite easy to use. There will be a post about how to use the software soon.
[...] ChemSketch is a great free program that allows easy drawing of molecules. ChemSketch is only available for Windows, though it should run on OSX capable of running windows programs. I am aware of ChemDoodle and ChemDraw for OSX. If anyone knows of a free solution for OSX or Linux please post in the comments and I will be glad to edit this post. These drawings can be dropped into the SRS to make effective cards using the Organic Chemistry models. [...]
Hi, I really enjoyed reading this stuff. I started using anki several months ago for memorizing structural formulas, but I continued studying all the rest of chemistry the old way… Now I have 140 pages full of material with advanced organic chemistry and I’m afraid that this whole “digitalizing” would cost way too much time…time that I could spend with studying this stuff in a “normal” or traditional way. I guess I’ll start creating some cards and see how much time it costs…but would you recommend investing this time, even when the exams get near?
Thank you again for all this good information!!!
Thank you for the kind words. It is nice to see you found a way to use Anki with Gen Chem.
It will be slow going at first when using ChemSketch or ChemDraw to 1make reactions. Much longer than after becoming familiar with the program. In this way, the first dozen, few dozen, however many will be irrepresentative of how long it would take to make cards later.
After awhile it took me around a minute to make reactions and put them into Anki. Let’s say there are 4 reactions a page at 140 pages, that’s 560 minutes = 9 hours and 20 minutes. For me when I was in Ochem that was about 3 days of studying using traditional methods. Of course I recommend spacing this out over a period of a few days or a week or something.
The time spent making the cards can also be considered studying as well. In a way, it is doing what you would already do – just with the end result of super powered memory tools to memorize the information afterward.
Also, is all of the information on the 140 pages necessary? Simplifying things helps a great deal when putting cards into SRS. How much or how little will become a ‘feeling’ after working with it for awhile.
As for when exams are coming near – I recommend after every class as soon as possible making the Anki cards (I will be making the cards for my Anatomy class that finished an hour ago right after posting this.) It prevents having to input a backlog of information and keeps everything consistent. Spaced repetition, as mentioned in the other article about Emergency Studying on this website, is meant more for using over a few weeks. SRS will work when crammed into a short amount of time, but it really does feel like it takes part of the soul in the process.
The decision to do it is in your hands. Moving to SRS is a jump because it is quite a different method of studying and requires some initial effort, though the effort multiplies over itself many times and significantly cuts down on having to put effort/time in later. Best of luck with however you choose to walk the path.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TY9womdTz8