What is the best way to tackle organic chemistry?

A better way to study this reaction is to use it as a source of questions. Given the starting material and reagents, what is the product of this reaction? Given the starting material and product, what reagents are required? Given the reagents and the product, what starting material is required? Then practice it by writing the equations and revise it accordingly for easy remembrance. This helps you to score high marks. read less

Most importantly - make a website your friend. You might think what can a website have that textbooks don't have, well to begin with, James is a PhD and Postdoc in Chemistry and very passionate about chemistry. He especially has experience in learning methods for chemistry that have been used over and over again by many people like me. Now like Syed said, you definitely have to devise your own methods, BUT there are thumbrules and general guidelines which will help you learn faster. Most subject in science especially chemistry and biology can be broken down into chunks of learning modules. So for Organic Chemistry the most important thing to begin with is learn the names of the functional groups there are 23 (From Alkene to Thioether) understand how they are named. Once you learn the formation of these groups, their formulas and how and why they are named as such, you will have covered over 45 % of Organic Chemistry concepts. Don't just mug up the names, understand the 23 groups. Next Step understand electronegatives, because these electronegatives play an important role in all of chemistry and more so in Organic Chemistry. Now in organic chemistry you have to worry about only 12 important electronegative elements F O Cl N Br I S C H P B Si in their order of decreasing electronegativity. Step 3 - Chemical reactions are all about negative charge going to positive charge. Nucleophile attacks electrophile, so you have to focus on studying the bonds that these elements react with the functional groups. This determines their acidity basisity neutrophility and electrophility. Step four - Know the Acid Disassociation Constant pKa = - log10Ka in organic chemistry this is super duper important. These four steps will cover near about 75 % of the concepts and because they are so tightly related when you cover these four again and again you will be covering many important concepts thoroughly. The rest is reading, making memory flash cards, drawing diagrams as many times as possible and practice my friend. This will take care of the 25 %. Hope this helps. Good Luck! read less