Chapter 4
This chapter is vital for understanding all the reactions you’ll see in the next six chapters of this book (Chapters 5-10). On top of that, this material is directly tested on the MCAT as often as any other topic in organic chemistry. Make sure you know all of it!
Sitting down to solve MCAT organic chemistry problems can be overwhelming at first, particularly if the reactants or reagents are new to you. The reactions on the page may seem like stage magic—fun to watch, but controlled by forces outside of our knowledge. The good news, however, is that organic chemistry isn’t magic—and it is governed by sets of rules that make understanding what will happen much simpler. In this chapter, we will go over several of the aspects that determine how a complex reaction proceeds and take a brief look at functional group reactivity. Then, armed with this knowledge, we lay out the simple, sequential steps that we can use to determine which reactions will take place. Chapters 5 through 10 of MCAT Organic Chemistry Review focus on applications of these principles with different functional groups, so look for patterns between these reactions as you continue preparing for Test Day. With these tools in hand, you can show the MCAT that you know how the trick is done—it isn’t magic.