CM2122 - ORGANIC CHEMISTRY

Academic Year 23/24 - Semester 1

Assessments:​

Lab Report: 20% 

Mid Terms: 30% 

Final Exam: 50% 

Lecturer: Asst Prof Zhu Ruyi 

Lab Instructor: Dr Hoang Truong Giang 

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Course Overview: 

• Infrared spectroscopy, Mass Spectroscopy, 1H and 13C Nuclear Magnetic Resonance

• Delocalization and conjugation, Electrophilic aromatic substitution, Nucleophilic addition to carbonyls, Nucleophlic substitution and elimination, Stereochemistry, Electrophilic addition to alkenes

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No. of responses : 4

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REVIEWS

What advice would you give to someone considering to take this course?

Yihan: For those who took H3 chemistry or Chem Olympiad, it is a good systematic revision of the contents. Many interesting extensions are also covered. Lecturer will go in-depth to some of the content, but will make it clear whether the content is tested during the exam.

veryllium: The course is super content heavy, if you are taking content heavy mods, it is not recommended to overload too much. If you are very good at mechanism drawing and electron movement you will ace this course.

udonzzz: I would say it is important to keep up with the lecture content as there is really quite a bit to remember, and the test and finals are closed book, so with consistent effort it will definitely be easier to remember all the values for IR and NMR spectroscopy, as well as the various reactions and their conditions. In addition, it is highly recommended to go for tutorials as they go in depth about the reaction mechanisms while the answer key typically does not cover everything.

What did you enjoy or find most useful from this course?

Yihan: The lecturer is willing to cover harder contents. The tutorial questions and exam questions are fun and creative, and actually helps to consolidate the knowledge.

veryllium: The tutorials are very useful and should go for them, as the answer keys doesn’t provide the whole mechanism.

udonzzz: The course introduces to us many important fundamental reactions, as well as the thought process behind how these reactions occur, which will be helpful for the 3K advanced organic chemistry course, and maybe even chemistry electives.

What aspects of the course did you find most challenging, and why?

Yihan: Sometimes I am a bit blind to deduce IR spectra haha. Although by learning the mechanism, I don’t need to memorise the reactant and product now, but memorising the reagents and conditions is still kind of annoying.

veryllium: The content was a lot and hard to memorise.

udonzzz: The most challenging aspect to me was memorising all the reactions and conditions because I started too last minute.

What resources did you find most helpful in helping you better understand the course material?

Yihan: The lecture slides itself is quite good. It is highly recommended for everyone to go for lecture, because it is really helpful. The tutorial is also very helpful in consolidating the content.

veryllium: Clayden was good.

udonzzz: Clayden should definitely be useful according to what most students say.

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What other courses do you think should be taken before or concurrently with this course?

Yihan: No, this course is quite basic. But if you are weak at organic chemistry, revising your JC organic chem during the holiday is highly recommended.

veryllium: Can be taken with any chemistry courses.

udonzzz: CM2133 is a viable course to take together with CM2122 as both courses touch on IR and NMR spectroscopy, so they complement each other.