Tips on how to master organic chem?

[lan418]

Im in sophmore organic chemistry in college but i been feeling kind of depressed lately. I put in my fair amount of time studying the material and i never usually fall behind or procrastinate. But on the last test i did really bad. I really thought i understood the material to expect B or higher. But the professor's test was hard and the average score was a 66 out of the whole class.

 

But i still dont know why i did so much for my time spent for preparation. HOw do/did you guys become good at organic and what are some tips you can offer? Also, it would be appreciated if you can provide some links that is very thorough for review and test concepts to make sure you have mastered them. Im pretty sure some people on this board had earn at least A or Bs in organic chem.

 

Thanks for your time.

[ecoli]

what's the curve like?

[lan418]

for just this particular test the cut offs would be 70-79 would be a B and B+ for around 80-82, anything 82+ is A, C are around 60ish range. below is D and failing.

[insane_alien]

Well, don't get down about it. organic chem isn't the easiest of topics. you'll probably do better in the next test.

[lan418]

can you suggust a method to prepare better? it seems like what im doing isnt working very well. i read ahead of the class and do more practice problems than require with attentive understanding. I dont know what else i can do for the next test to go smoothly.

[YT2095]

ask your teacher to do you photo-copies of Past exam papers (with the answers) and then get a friend to test you on them, or even fill them in yourself (without looking at the answers) and get the teacher to mark you on them.

a Good teacher would Not mind doing this for you.

[insane_alien]

well seeing as the whole class seemed to struggle a bit you could maybe organise a study session or something. looks good to uni's and employers later on in life. helps everybody as well.

[Dak]

what i found useful, is figuring out how you, personally, learn best. the four most common ways, iirc, are:

 

having something explained to you

talking about it.

reading stuff

doing it

having stuff shown, rather than explained, to you

 

yeah, i know thats 5 and not 4, but i can't remember what the 4 are

 

i tend to learn best by reading and doing; hence, when i was studying, i'd read up on stuff then help 'teach' people who were revising it (as close to doing as i could get without a lab in my house). for you, this might not work, but if you can figure out which of those ways works best, then you should be able to figure out how best to learn.

 

a common problem that i saw in uni is that people would read shit-loads because thats what other people who were doing well were doing/thats what they thought uni students do, but it just never went in. but, they always got the consepts after i explained it to them, and they always got the consepts that were tought in the lectures (hence, i'd figure they learn best from having stuff explained to them).

 

I, on the other hand, missed the vast majority of my lectures, and only rarely asked people to explain the stuff to me, 'cos i simply dont learn well from people explaining stuff to me, whereas if i have a book and the interweb, i can learn quite well.

 

so yeah, i guess my advice would be to pay attention to wether you pick stuff up easyest in lectures, from reading books, from practase questions, from demonstrations, or from discussing stuff with a mate, and then centre your revision around that: if you learn well reading, read; if you learn well by doing, try to get lots of practice problems and work through them.

 

as YT said, practice problems are neccesary, reguardless of wether you learn well that way, as they tell you how well you've learnt something.

 

remembering is technically different from learning, but is an intergral part, and depends on how your trying to learn, but generally requires repetition; with me, for example, i read stuff, took notes (writing down #1), amalgamated them into one set of notes (writing down #2), and copied out a neat version of the notes with highlighted bullet-points (#3) twice (#4), and then copied the bullet points out multiple times, and then the whole notes again (#5) a week or so later. it sucks cock, but it forses it into your mind (at least, i found it did)

 

also, i left a gap inbetween each copying, so that it stimulated my memory each time i copied it. by the last copying, i usually found that i didn't really have to look at my notes that much, and could usually pull the consepts from my memory.

 

then read up somemore, but tryed to predict where the book was going before i actually finished the paragraph/centance. when i could skim-read stuff and not find anything i didn't realy understand... well, tbh this was usually 1 in the morning before the exam, 'cos i tend to leave revision to the last minute, but if i were more organised, this would be the point where i went to the pub cos i figured i'd revised enough.

 

or 'vised' as i called it, what with my tendancy to miss lectures.

[lan418]

i thought about going into study groups, in fact the teacher strongly recommended it. But for me personally, for the past few months i have been teaching myself and going solo because i feel if i study in groups not much will get done and it feels as if im "convinced" to be prepared just becasue we talk about some things and there is no true understanding.

 

 

It was a good suggustion for the prof. to grade my practice exams. He did post them on the internet and i work on them and try to understand why i got it wrong while practicing those problems.

 

sigh

[ecoli]

Small study groups work the best. Find someone who really knows the material and ask for a one-on-one session, or perhaps a TA. If you have the money, you could even offer some money as incentive. A tutor situation is usually effective for me. Because it allows me to find out what specific topics or concepts I don't understand.

And of course, practice makes perfect. I'm orgo now too, and from what I understand, it's a lot of applying concepts. For me, by doing a lot of problems, I can understand the style of questions and absorb the concepts at the same time. Maybe this will work for you?

[lan418]

thanks for all the replies and concerns.

 

I just recently got the test Key back and i banged my head on the table. I could of easily gotten a letter grade up if it werent for me making these stupid mistakes. For example, an E2 reaction, how its suppose to knock off Br and form an alkene with a strong base and tert-carbon group(so SN2 doesnt occur), I LEFT BR ON IN THE FINAL ANSWER!!!!! i was penalized and along with some other mistakes like that.

 

I understand the material well but, with all my past chemistry experiences, i always do stupid mistakes and its painful to see those points go away after i review my test. Why do i always make such stupid mistakes, i didnt even feel rushed and i prepared for the exam.

 

BUt aside from that, thanks for the good advices in this thread, i will take them into consideration.

 

 

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STUPID MISTAKES ARHGHAHHARHAGHARHGAHRHGAHRHAGHARHGH