Organic Reaction Quizzes and Summaries

You may use these summaries and problems but you may NOT download them for use at another site, nor may you charge for access to them: they are the property of the authors and Towson University.

Copyright Linda M. Sweeting 1997

The summaries and quizzes which can be selected below are designed to assist organic chemistry students in the review of the basic reactions; they are similar to the summaries in the text and include references to it. We have chosen to use specific examples, rather than R-group notation, so that you will see the reactions in context in a real, but simple, molecule. Note that every reaction should occur twice in this summary, once under "reactions" and once under "synthesis"; for your convenience, the functional groups are separated into semester groups, but some reactions may occur once in each. Reactions for which the mechanism or stereochemistry is an important part of your learning have Mechanism! or Stereochemistry! highlighted. Study hints by this professor and a successful Towson University student; hints provided for a Biochemistry course also apply since the skills are the same.

These summaries and quizzes, which are still under construction, come without guarantee; please let me know if you find an error. I confess that myself and several students had fun and learned a lot putting these together. We hope they are some assistance. Page down to see the selection. Or select other organic chemistry study aids, including links to other helpful sites, here.

Functional Group Reactions
Organic 1 Functional Groups
alcohol (primary, secondary, tertiary) reactions syntheses organic quiz inorganic quiz
alkane reactions syntheses organic quiz inorganic quiz
alkene reactions syntheses organic quiz inorganic quiz
alkyl halide reactions syntheses organic quiz inorganic quiz
alkyne reactions syntheses organic quiz inorganic quiz
ether reactions syntheses organic quiz inorganic quiz

Organic 2 Functional Groups
aldehyde and ketone reactions syntheses organic quiz inorganic quiz
amide, carboxamide reactions syntheses organic quiz inorganic quiz
amine (primary, secondary, tertiary) reactions syntheses organic quiz inorganic quiz
aromatic compounds reactions organic quiz inorganic quiz
carboxylate ester reactions syntheses organic quiz inorganic quiz
carboxylic acid reactions syntheses organic quiz inorganic quiz
carboxylic acid chloride and anhydride reactions syntheses organic quiz inorganic quiz
carboxylic acid salt reactions organic quiz inorganic quiz
1,3-diene reactions organic quiz inorganic quiz
enolate reactions syntheses organic quiz inorganic quiz

Common Reagents

Acids / Electrophiles Bases / Nucleophiles Oxidizers Reducers

To use these reactant categories more effectively you might want to review acids and bases , oxidation and reduction in general, or learn or review how to calculate oxidation states and balance equations for organic compounds.

Study Hints

Every student should make a personal summary in a style that suits her or his own learning style - whatever works for you, do it. Several methods have been found successful for learning reactions:

Summaries are most effective if you make them yourself. So use the summaries in the files above to check your own rather than generate them.
Summaries cannot substitute for working problems - from the text, from old exams, from the Internet. Working problems is especially effective if you treat the problems as an exam, and do not look up the answers until you have completed a set. The quizes in the files above are drills, and are less complex than those in the text or on the exams.
Additional study hints are provided in the lecture syllabi (go back to the Organic Chemistry menu to select the syllabus), by a successful student and on some Internet sites such as this one for Biochemistry.

Back to the Organic Chemistry menu

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Suggestions for improvement should be sent by e-mail to lsweeting@towson.edu. Justin D. Chandler is the co-creator of these pages, and we had help from Adeola Adeyeye, Arh Lam, Nathanael McCurley, Bryan Bornfriend, Keith Leadbetter and Shannon Devine. If you wish to participate (there is still lots to be done, such as scaling the pictures of the reagents and adding other texts) contact Dr. Sweeting.

Last update Nov. 1, 1998