[kenneth526]

Overview
Chem 2OB3 is a continuation of Chem 2OA3 and covers organic synthesis, reactions and mechanisms involving alcohols, aromatic compounds, aldehydes, ketones, carboxylic acids (and their derivatives), amines and carbohydrates. There is a much lighter focus on spectroscopy in this class (NMR, infrared, etc) and a much larger emphasis on mechanisms and synthesis. Similar to its predecessor, Chem 2OB3 is a relatively challenging course and will require you to put a lot of work into it if you want a good mark.

Course Breakdown
Midterm: 25%
Assignments (2 in total): 10%
Labs (5 in total): 20%
Final Exam: 45%

If you do better on the final exam than the midterm, your midterm weighting will be added to the exam so that it's worth 70% of your final mark. This means that there are no alternate test dates after the midterm if you miss it: they'll just add the weighting to your final exam (and you don't want that - see below)


Midterm

• 15 mutliple choice questions worth 2 marks each (30 marks)
• 5 Short answer questions worth a total of 70 marks (the entire midterm is 100 total marks)
• 90 minutes long
• covers chapters 12-16

The midterm for this class when I took it (Winter 2009) was relatively easy. The multiple choice questions were what you would expect from a chemistry class (sorry to those of you who hated 1A03/1AA3 questions) and the short answers/synthesis questions were deceivingly simple. Study well for the midterm and you should be able to pull off a decent mark.

Assignments
Similar to 2OA3, the two assignments are released about two weeks before they're due and are each worth 5% of your final grade. These assignments were relatively trickier than the 2OA3 assignments, so make sure you spend a good amount of time working on them. If you choose to work in groups, make sure you're able to answer the questions on your own.

Labs and Tutorials
The labs and tutorials follow the same format as with 2OA3. I found the labs slightly more interesting this term, especially the last polymer chemistry lab were you synthesis a playdoh-like substance and nylon-6 mesh. As with most organic chemistry labs, be prepared to reflux and use the Hirsch flitration.

The tutorials were very helpful. The TAs go over the tutorial questions that the prof posts and answers any other questions you may have.

Final Exam

• 3 hours long, 200 marks
• 35% pre-midterm material, 65% post-midterm material
• 36 MC questions worth 2 marks each (72 marks for MC)
• 10 or so short answer questions worth 108 marks

The final exam was hard, very hard. The multiple choice section was relatively fair, but the short answer section was very challenging. In hindsight, not only do you need to know every reaction in detail, but you need to know the reaction conditions/catalysts and how they complement each other to do well on the final exam. This was probably the hardest exam I've written at University.

Professor
Dr. Jim McNulty taught this class when I took it. I honestly think that he's an 'acquired taste': I didn't really enjoy his lecturing at first, but it got a lot better as the term went by. He runs office hours on Tuesdays and Thursdays every week, but the tutorials and help center should be sufficient for getting extra help.

Difficulty et al.
Organic Chemistry II is a hard class. Most students who took this course before 2009 or in summer school will probably say that it was easier than 2OA3, while those who took it in 2009 might say otherwise. Either way, this class is by no means a walk in the park and you'll need to put a lot of work and effort to get a good grade.

Good luck!

I wholeheartedly agree, looking a past final exams, I can see why many said that 2OB3 was easier than 2OA3. This is no longer the case, the exam was nowhere near the difficulty level of previous years. It is incredibly difficult to do well on the final exam, even with memorizing every reaction, it is VERY long and you will be writing it to the very end.

do you have to pick the tutorial (which is EOW) at the same time as the lab? do they alternate in the EOWs? or can you pick anything at random?

Although this may not apply to you guys in second term for the coming year, i shall write it out anyways, -- I did my course IN THE SUMMER

Course Breakdown:

Midterm: 20 %
Assignments 5 % x 2
Labs: 20%
Exam: 50 %

Midterm:

15 MC, 42 Marks worth of Short Answer - Composed of 4 Questions
Totalling /57
I thought it was a very easy midterm where people could easily handle it, however the average was in the 60's and even our professor was very surprised -- begging everyone to study for the exam because it would be defenitely harder. (However mind you i have a feeling people didn't study because the midterm was genuinely VERY easy in my mind)

Labs:

Labs in 2OB3 are funner than 2OA3. One of the funnest lab (Lab 5) includes making Nylon and other labs allow you to actually go into the NMR machine and see it at work. 2OB3 labs are more relaxed in a sense because of all the procedures learn in 2OA3, you'll be doing Distillations and refluxing in almost every single lab and filtration -- all things that learnt in 2OA3, making the labs very easy. In all the labs except for 1, Infrared Spec was also ran, the only bad thing about the labs were the lineups for the IR machine, otherwise the labs were not only fun and educational - they were enjoyable.

Assigments:

Challenging if you have not reviewed the material or have not looked at the textbook. If you read the textbook and do some practice problems at the back, these should for the most part be easy -- they will touch on things that will make you think and are GREAT review for your Final Exam and Midterms -- dont put these off till the last day, its best to them at least 3 days in advance so you can check it over for mistakes. My suggestion is to print off 2 copies, use one as a rough, check that one over, and then make a good copy.

Final Exam:

Out of 89

23 MC/ 66 Short Answers

I would say that almost 80 percent of the material was exclusively after midterm material. Our exam's first question was composed of 30 marks - 15 Reactions where the product had to be shown. 10 Mark reaction mechanism, and another 10 for Synthesis followed by probably 10-16 for a Combiend reaction map + reaction mechanism. Multiple choice was very fair and I personally found easy.

The Exam was indeed challenging however it was not HARD. With the proper amount of studying you would have done well -- very easily. Although memorization is not the best approach to this course -- it can help you with reagents and whats needed for reactions to occur.



Final Sentiments:

Although Orgo 2 was DEFENITELY harder than Orgo 1 (made it look ridiculously easy), with the proper amount of studying and review after class this can not only be a fun course for you, but you can achieve a high mark. All you need to do is study AT LEAST a weeks prior if you know that the material isnt fresh in mind. I highly suggest making notes in advance but if it looks like time is running out - forget that and focus on practice problems at the end of the chapter, old tests and assignments. A good source for questions that will help you and make you understand the material are the review problems at the end of each section. Having the solution manual handy is very useful for this.

Don't be afraid to check out some problems online -- orgo is a big subjects with lots of questions, the more you practice -- the better, the more from older exams and tests from 2005 and on, the harder they are and the more understanding of the material you will get.

Tutorials: Ours were optional in the summer, I never went but others found it helpful.

Took it with Dr. Capretta in 2009/2010

Lectures
Extremely interesting, if there was a class to never skip, I'd pick this one because Dr.Capretta draws out mechanisms that really help your understanding of many important reactions (and he doesn't save them after lecture and post them so if you miss it, you miss it, unless u have really nice friends). He makes lots of good jokes that keep you awake.

Tutorials
Helpful for doing assignment quetsions and reviewing material form 2OA3 that was needed in 2OB3.

Labs
Were the best part of the course. So easy to get full marks and so fun. No formal lab reports. Mark breakdown was given in every lab so as long as you write down everything they ask for its an easy 10/10 and they were worth 4% each. TA was also extremely helpful, gave us tips and helped us along the experiments.

Assignments
I found them long and tedious (for what they're worth which is 3 asn worth 5% total) but they were good practice.

Midterm
Pretty easy, no tricks.. except for one questions in MC where he gave us 4 scientists and asked which one wasn't german... it was funny though =)

Exam
He told us exactly what type of questions/mark worth in the last lecture and told us it would be hard (and it was). For both midterm and exam, he had one questions were you answer 15/20 questions... which was nice cuz you had a buffer of 5 questions that wouldnt' cost you any marks if you didn't know.

IA
Terri was great, she taught a couple of lectures. Really clear and gives many important tips and advice. Extremely approachable and friendly.

As you can see from my rating, i loved this course (though i HATE chemistry)

Does anybody know if the notes for Chem 2OA3 and Chem 2OB3 are online (on a class website other than ELM?) or if somebody is willing to post them up? I would greatly appreciate it!!!

Originally Posted by sana1504

Does anybody know if the notes for Chem 2OA3 and Chem 2OB3 are online (on a class website?) or if somebody is willing to post them up? I would greatly appreciate it!!!

It's on ELM. There are A LOT of notes. But here's the course outlines, that should help a lot.

Originally Posted by jhan523

It's on ELM. There are A LOT of notes. But here's the course outlines, that should help a lot.

Thanks so much!!

Jeremy,
The course outlines were really helpful!!
Do you mind posting some of the orgo notes (if its not too much trouble)
I am just really bad at chem and I just wanted to get a head start
Thanks so much!

Originally Posted by sana1504

Jeremy,
The course outlines were really helpful!!
Do you mind posting some of the orgo notes (if its not too much trouble)
I am just really bad at chem and I just wanted to get a head start
Thanks so much!

They are too big to be uploaded on MacInsiders... If you are near McMaster you can go to the library, I believe they have the books.

Originally Posted by jhan523

They are too big to be uploaded on MacInsiders... If you are near McMaster you can go to the library, I believe they have the books.

Oh right, I forgot we can't upload pdf files larger than 1 MB.
Thanks, anyways!

I've heard a lot of reviews about Orgo I & II and how difficult they are. Is a 10+ possible in both courses? And any tips for success with the different aspects of the course, especially with a second-year biology workload?

Thanks!

Originally Posted by ~*Sara*~

I've heard a lot of reviews about Orgo I & II and how difficult they are. Is a 10+ possible in both courses? And any tips for success with the different aspects of the course, especially with a second-year biology workload?

Thanks!

I'm sure it's possible to get a 10 in the course. What are the chances that 500 kids all have averages under 10?

Keep up with the material and do lots of practice problems.

For anyone that took this course with Dr. Capretta...in the first lecture he mentioned that all of the material from 2OA3 is assumed knowledge....having been away from 2OA3 for 2 years I really don't remember all of the rxn mechanisms and little details, so I'm just wondering if someone can tell me how much of the 2OA3 material was directly tested in 2OB3. Were there actually midterm/exam questions based exclusively on knowledge from 2OA3?

I just want to know how much time I should invest in going over material from 2OA3.

Originally Posted by SciMania

For anyone that took this course with Dr. Capretta...in the first lecture he mentioned that all of the material from 2OA3 is assumed knowledge....having been away from 2OA3 for 2 years I really don't remember all of the rxn mechanisms and little details, so I'm just wondering if someone can tell me how much of the 2OA3 material was directly tested in 2OB3. Were there actually midterm/exam questions based exclusively on knowledge from 2OA3?

I just want to know how much time I should invest in going over material from 2OA3.

It's not explicitly tested, but it is tested along with 2OB3 stuff...like, if you have a synthesis question, some steps might involve things from 2OA3. 2OA3 is a prereq for a reason. You can still do reasonably well on the assignments, since you can look up anything from 2OA3 that you forget, but it will likely hurt you on the exam (although not so much on the midterm, I found).