Positive Chemistry Experiences
Welcome from Your Positivity Creators for Organic 1 and 2!
We have worked hard to prepare simple-language books that go with a bunch of online videos to help you study for your class. Whether you are someone who is dead set on getting an A and acing the MCAT or a time-strapped student trying to just survive a tough organic class, we hope that the study outlined below will be as straightforward and helpful as possible. If there are topics that you need to learn but that we don't cover in our videos or books or if you find a mistake, please email us so we can contnue to improve our content.
Andy Tennyson (left), Tania Houjeiry (center) and Rhett Smith (right)
Organic Chemistry 1 Study Plan
Part I: Foundations
Tutorial 1
Step 2: Watch the Video
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8 pages to read in the Primer
Lesson I.1 Representation of Structure
Lesson I.2 Polarity, Dipoles, Formal Charge
Tutorial 2
Step 2: Watch Video
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2 pages to read in the Primer
Lesson I.3 Representation of Structure
Tutorial 3
Step 2: Watch Video
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4 pages to read in the Primer
Lesson I.4 Nucleophiles, Electrophiles, Functional Groups
Tutorial 4
4 pages to read in the Primer
Lesson I.5 Arrow-Pushing Formalism
Step 2: Watch Video
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Tutorial 5
4 pages to read in the Primer
Lesson I.6 Hybridization, Bonding, and Geometry
Step 2: Watch Video
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Tutorial 6
4 pages to read in the Primer
Lesson I.7 Resonance
Step 2: Watch Video
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Tutorial 7
4 pages to read in the Primer
Lesson I.8 More Arrow-Pushing and Identifying Steps
Step 2: Watch Video
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Tutorial 8
6 pages to read in the Primer
Lessons I.9-10 Acids and Bases in Organic Chem
Step 2: Watch Video
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Tutorial 9
5 pages to read in the Primer
Lesson I.11Stability of Cations, radicals, and alkenes
Step 2: Watch Video
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Tutorial 10
7 pages to read in the Primer
Lessons I.12-13 Equilibrium and Spontaneous Reactions
Step 2: Watch Video
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Tutorial 11
6 pages to read in the Primer
Lesson I.14 Naming Alkanes, Alcohols and Alkyl Halides
Step 2: Watch Video
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Tutorial 12
3 pages to read in the Primer
Lesson I.15 Conformations of Linear Alkanes, Newman Projections
Step 2: Watch Video
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Tutorial 13
5 pages to read in the Primer
Lesson I.16 Cycloalkanes, Chair Cyclohexane
Step 2: Watch Video
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Tutorial 14
6 pages to read in the Primer
Lessons I.17-18 Chirality and Intro to Assigning R- and S-
Step 2: Watch Video
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Tutorial 15
1 page to read in the Primer
Lesson I.19 Fischer Projections
Step 2: Watch Video
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Tutorial 16
2 pages to read in the Primer
Lesson I.20 Enantiomers, Diastereomers, and Meso
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Part II: Substitution, Elimination, Oxidation
Tutorial 17
4 pages to read in the Primer
Lesson II.1 Tracking Stereocenters in Reactions
Step 2: Watch Video
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Tutorial 18
4 pages to read in the Primer
Lesson II.2 Nucleophilicity vs. Basicity
Step 2: Watch Video
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Tutorial 19
9 pages to read in the Primer
Lessons II.3-5 SN1 and SN2 of Alkyl Halides
Step 2: Watch Video
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Note: the poor audio will be fixed asap!
Tutorial 20
10 pages to read in the Primer
Lessons II.6-9 E1 and E2 of Alkyl Halides
Step 2: Watch Video
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Tutorial 21
3 pages to read in the Primer
Lesson II.10 Competing Subst. and Elim. on RX
Step 2: Watch Video
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Tutorial 22
4 pages to read in the Primer
Lesson II.11 Substitution and Elim. of Alcohols
Step 2: Watch Video
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Tutorial 23
4 pages to read in the Primer
Lesson II.12-13 Oxidation of Alcohols
Step 2: Watch Video
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Tutorial 24
3 pages to read in the Primer
Lesson II.14 Acid Cleavage of Ethers
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Tutorial 25
2 pages to read in the Primer
Lesson II.15 Ring-Opening of Epoxides
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Part III: Alkenes, Alkynes, Radicals
Tutorial 26
10 pages to read in the Primer
Lesson III.1 Naming Alkenes
Lesson III.2 Properties and Hydrogenation of Alkenes
Step 2: Watch Video
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Note: Each Alkene Rxn Video (Tutorials 26-31) has practice for all prior reactions too.
Tutorial 27
15 pages to read in the Primer
Lessons III.3-5 Hydration and Hydrohalogenation of Alkenes
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Tutorial 28
5 pages to read in the Primer
Lesson III.6 Halogenation and Halohydrins from Alkenes
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Tutorial 29
5 pages to read in the Primer
Lesson III.7 Oxymercuration of Alkenes
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5 pages to read in the Primer
Lesson III.8 Cyclopropanation and Epoxidation of Alkenes
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Tutorial 30
Tutorial 31
7 pages to read in the Primer
Lesson III.9 Hydroboration/Oxidation of Alkenes
Lesson III.10 Ozonolysis and Prep of Vicinal Diols
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Tutorial 32
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2 pages to read in the Primer
Lesson III.11 Naming Alkynes
5 pages to read in the Primer
Lesson III.12 Rxn of Alkynes with HX or X2
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Tutorial 33
Tutorial 34
4 pages to read in the Primer
Lesson III.13 Reducing Alkynes
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7 pages to read in the Primer
Lesson III.14-15 Tautomerism and Carbonyls from Alkynes
Tutorial 35
Tutorial 36
3 pages to read in the Primer
Lesson III.16 Acetylide anion and Multistep Synthesis
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Tutorial 37
3 pages to read in the Primer
Lesson III.17 Peroxide-Mediated Hydrobromination of Alkenes
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Tutorial 38
4 pages to read in the Primer
Lesson III.18 Halogenation of Alkanes
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Tutorial 39
3 pages to read in the Primer
Lesson IV.1 Pi Conjugation
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Tutorial 40
4 pages to read in the Primer
Lesson IV.2 Addition to Conjugated Dienes
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Tutorial 41
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3 pages to read in the Primer
Lesson IV.3 Diels-Alder Rxn
Part VII: Spectroscopy (cont'd/included in Organic 2 as well; often covered in Orgo 2)
Tutorial 42: UV-vis Spectroscopy
6 pages to read in the Primer
Lesson VII.1-2 UV/vis Spectroscopy
Step 2: Watch Video
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Tutorial 43
5 pages to read in the Primer
Lesson VII.3-4 Infrared (IR) spectroscopy
Step 2: Watch Video
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Step 3: Try the practice problems in Lesson VIII.2 (Answers in Lesson VIII.3)
Tutorial 44
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4 pages to read in the Primer
Lesson VII.5 Intro to NMR Spectrometry
Tutorial 45
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2 pages to read in the Primer
Lesson VII.6 Carbon-13 NMR
Tutorial 46
3 pages to read in the Primer
Lesson VII.7 Proton NMR
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Step 3: try the practice problems in Lesson VIII.4 (Answers in Lesson VIII.5)
