Synthetic Challenge Handouts

A large focus of exam 2 and the final exam will be on devising syntheses of organic molecules. This is a skill that must be practiced in order to master. To help you prepare for those synthetic challenges, I've posted two handouts on the course website's File Sharing page (synthesis_689.pdf & synthesis_10112.pdf) that describe common synthetic strategies and provide several synthetic challenges for practice.  In order to encourage you to work on these, I am going to pull SOME of the synthesis questions for exam 2 and the final exam directly from these two handouts, with no modifications.  Some of the synthesis questions, of course, will be original. That's not an encouragement to memorize every synthesis in the handouts, however. It won't work; there are too many. Rather, practice applying the retrosynthesis technique we're learning in class to each problem and then do them all over again. Start working on them early.  Don't procrastinate!  And try to have fun.  Once you've mastered synthesis you can finally say you're an organic chemist--if only for a semester.