Chemistry

Introduction

Organic chemistry is a subject that blends basic chemistry, logic problems, 3-D puzzles,

and stick-figure art that looks like something you may find in a prehistoric cave. To say

that organic chemistry covers a pretty large amount of material is a bit like saying that

oxygen is pretty important for human survival. You’re probably somewhat familiar with an

organic chemistry textbook if you’re reading this workbook. I’d be proud to catch a fish that

weighed as much! Organic chemistry does cover a lot of material, so much that you can’t

possibly hope to memorize it all.

But good news! You don’t need to memorize the vast majority of the material if you understand the basic concepts at a fundamental level, and indeed, memorization beyond the basic

rules and conventions is even frowned upon. The catch is that to really understand the concepts, you have to practice at it by working problems. Lots of problems. Lots. Did I mention

the whole working problems thing? Mastering organic chemistry without working problems

is impossible — kind of like becoming an architect without bothering to draw up any plans.

This workbook is for getting hands-on experience. I’ve heard that organic exams are a lot like

a gunfight. You act out of instinct only if you’ve drilled the material you need to know.

Classmates who haven’t worked the problems will see the problems gunning at them on an

exam and spook. They’ll come down with a bad case of exam-block and start sucking their

thumbs and crying for Momma. You, on the other hand, having been to boot camp and practiced by drilling the problems every day, will stare the exam down like a cool-headed soldier

and get down to the serious business of whooping it up until it begs for its life.

About This Book

Ideally, you should use this book in conjunction with some other reference book, such as a

good introductory organic textbook or Organic Chemistry I For Dummies. This book doesn’t

cover the material in great detail; for each section, I give a brief overview of the topic

followed by problems that apply the material.

The organization of this book follows the For Dummies text, which in turn is organized to

follow most organic texts fairly closely. The basic layout of this workbook is to give you

straightforward problems for each section to really drill the concepts and build your

confidence — before spicing things up with a mischievous humdinger or two at the end of

each section to make you don the old thinking cap.

For added convenience, the book is modular, meaning that you can jump around to different

chapters without having to have read or worked problems in other chapters. If you need to

know some other concepts to get you up to speed, just follow the cross-references.

Conventions Used in This Book

As with all For Dummies books, I’ve tried to write the answers in a simple conversational

style, just as if you and I were having a one-on-one tutoring session, coffee in hand. Here are

some other conventions I’ve followed concerning the problems:

At the beginning of each section, I present one or two example problems to show you

the thought process involved in working that problem type before you take a stab at

similar problems. You can refer back to the example while you’re working the other

problems in that section if you get stuck.

Short answers appear in bold in the Answer Key, followed by a detailed breakdown of

how I solved each problem. This includes my personal thought process of how to solve

a particular problem type, such as where to start and how to proceed.