Hey guys this is Leah from leah4sci.com and in this video, I’m going to show you a way
to actively memorize reactions, mechanisms and reagents for organic chemistry.
First thing to clarify, when it comes to organic chemistry, memorization is not the answer,
you need to understand rather than memorize because if you memorize, you forget, and if
you forget, you have no way to derive the answer on an exam, but once you understand
the information there are still so many reactions, reagents and mechanisms that you have to know
and this is where a lot of students turn their flash guards.
My issue with flashcards is they're boring, they're two dimensional, and you’re looking
at a name or looking at a structure and trying to go from paper or from your phone, into
your head.
Now this does work to some degree but because it's so passive, when you see questions on
exams, sometimes it's hard to connect what you saw on the flashcards with the answer
that you have to provide.
So instead of passive memorization, you want to go to an active form of studying, instead
of just staring at the information, you want to look at it, you want to write it, you want
to touch it, you want to feel it, you want to make this a complete experience that makes
it so much easier to recall later on.
That's exactly what active writing is, you are actively writing the information that
you're trying to study.
So you want to learn the orgo functional groups?
You can go to my website, grab a functional group cheat sheet, and then just stare at
the names, stare at the structures and hope you remember them or you can use the cheat
sheet as a source or active writing, you see the functional group ketone, you write the
word ketone then you look at what that looks like, we have a carbon with a double bound
oxygen, you draw that out and that's just the start.
But don't stop here, so far we just looked at functional groups, what if you take it
a step further?
Going back to the ketone example, we have hexanone but don't stop here, what if we draw
a cyclic molecule and added a ketone here, what if we drew something that had a branch
and added a ketone here, this works even better for mechanisms because it's not just a thing
that you're memorizing, it's a step where things move around and then you have an intermediate,
and more things move and more things move and this can get overwhelming really quickly.
Let's look at a simple example, the acid catalyzed hydration of alkenes.
If you just stare at the mechanism, you might get parts of it, but if your exam has something
more complex, a different form of the alkene, maybe some branches or a ring then are you
comfortable that you'll know what to do?
For a lot of students, not necessarily, this is where active writing makes the real difference.
Start by looking at the mechanism and copying it, you just look, you basically cheat and
copy it over, you see an alkene, you draw the alkene, you see an arrow, you draw the
arrow.
You can also do this followed along with a video for example, one of my mechanism youtube
videos, you see the step, you copy out the step.
Once you're done, do it again but this time only copy the starting molecule and cover
the mechanism, see what you can do from memory and it might not be much, it might be the
first step where the pi bond attacks the hydrogen, that's ok.
Go as far as you can, then go back to your resource and copy it out, but don't just blindly
copy, with every step ask yourself, why are these electrons moving?
Why is this atom attacked?
Why is a pi bond the thing that's attacking?
And if you can explain to yourself why each step happens, the logical sequence will start
to make sense and I want you to do this over and over and over until you can do the entire
mechanism without having to look at your reference.
So you got the mechanism and you think you're done, but you're not.
Once you have it down, chances are you're going to forget, maybe in an hour, maybe tomorrow,
maybe the next week, don't let that happen.
You still need to reinforce it so that it goes into your long term memory, don't cram
the same thing over and over, I'd recommend you fifteen minutes a day and then stop.
Come back to it in a few hours or the next day and do the same thing again, look at your
starting molecule, see how far you can go, and when you get stuck, you'll get your reference.
Finish it out with a reference and start again.
Once you can do the entire thing without looking,change it up.
Don't get into the pattern of memorizing one type, look at different reactions so your
brain knows how to recognize a different molecule, same functional group, same mechanism.
For example, you are starting with butene, your next mechanism would be two methylbutane,
maybe the next mechanism would be methylcyclohexane and so on, add a ring, add a branch, the entire
thing changes but if you can prove to yourself that it's the same, you're gonna get so much
more comfortable with it.
And that's it, this is how I was finally able to memorize crazy, advanced mechanisms.
Everything from a simple acid catalyzed hydration to something as wacky as a robins annulation.
It's the physical act of writing that makes the difference but I don't recommend writing
these in a notebook because if you have a notebook and the pages build up, you're gonna
be overwhelmed thinking you have to study all those pages.
Instead, I recommend doing this on scrap paper that you throw away when you're done, hey
look it's the same mechanism, you don't need to see it again or even better on a dry erase
board, because you write it, you erase it, you do it again, you erase it, there's no
pressure to go back and study a massive stack of papers because you keep erasing.
One more fun trick for this is to use shower markers, if you get a set like what I have
linked in the description, you can actually take these into the shower with you and let's
face it, we all like to stay under the hot water for a few more minutes but then you
feel guilty that you should be studying so now you get the best of both roles, you get
to linger under the hot water and while you're stalling your shower, just draw out mechanisms
on the wall, so when you go into the shower, try to think about what it is you have to
study for example, for using the alkene reactions, try to remember a couple of different ones
and seeing how far you can get with the mechanism in the shower or in this idea came from the
student, if you want a reference to be able to do active writing in the shower, get something
like a plastic page protector, print out a couple of reactions, put it in the page protector,
paste it on your shower wall and then just look at that, turn to another section of the
wall, draw out the mechanism, erase it, do it again, look back at your page protector
for another set and just keep going.
And hey, if you do mechanisms on the shower, i'd love to see a picture so tag me @leah4sci
on facebook or instagram and finally, if you found this video helpful and want more study
tips like this, give the video a thumbs up and then let me know what you like to hear
about in the comments below.