Why is organic chemistry so hard?

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Organic chemistry is hard to those who want to memorize the reactants and products. As there are so many reactions available in organic chemistry and it will be very difficult to memorize all of them. Some of the organic reactions give rise to products that are predictable while some products in the reactions cannot be predicted. In fact it is very easy to remember the organic reactions compared to inorganic reactions as organic reactions can be written based on carbon skeleton. The products of an organic reaction can be predicted by calculating the number of carbons in the carbon skeleton. Based on certain principles of organic reactions, the carbon skeleton of the reactants can be predicted to give rise to two small carbon skeletons.

The principles of organic chemistry are made by observing the characteristic features of the organic reactants that give rise to the characteristic products. So, based on the particular carbon skeleton that can result from the particular reactants it is very easy to balance an organic reaction. It is also not hard to deal with organic chemistry as all the reactions go by principles. If the principles or rules that govern the organic chemistry are learnt properly then this field of science is not at all hard. For example, hydrations of alkenes result in the formation of alcohols. In this example, the carbon skeleton of the reactants are known and the functional group (-OH) of the products is known as per the rules. The carbon skeleton of the products can be predicted here based on the carbon skeleton in alkenes. So, it is not at all difficult to deal with this reaction if you can remember the rule that hydration of alkenes results in alcohol.

In any reaction related to aliphatic or aromatic there are many rules regarding the elimination of atoms, substitution, addition and rearrangement. So, organic chemistry is not hard but easy to understand. Only difficulty here is memorizing the rules.

Author: Hari M

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