Organic Chemistry For Dummies in GAMSAT study

whatsthecraic

I've started going through this book in revision for section 3 of the gamsat exam. I've covered most of the physical chemistry separately, and am now digging my way through this book. I'm about half way through the book, and still can't seem to answer any exam questions! Can anyone clarify what sections of this book are relevant for the exam, and how in-depth a knowledge do you need?

For example, in Chapter 8: Alkenes, do you need to know all of the reactions at the end of the chapter? Any help much appreciated!!

shroomfox

You need to use the Organic Chemistry for Dummies Workbook as well. Organic chemistry is simply practice - reading the books isn't going to cut it. These two books were the only ones I used for organic chemistry in the GAMSAT.

I can't remember anything about specific equations or reactions (you won't have to worry about how alkenes react once you get into med) but I did the whole book from start to finish and I'd recommend it. It doesn't really take that long to do and they can potentially throw any of it at you. As far as I remember, the first half of the book was just basic organic chemistry concepts which the GAMSAT just isn't going to test you on but you still need to know that stuff unless you want to make basic errors.

Lastly, the style of the GAMSAT questions is designed to confound you a bit unless you've practiced them as well so don't worry about trying the GAMSAT questions until you've finished the orgchem. Then do them repeatedly (referring back to the book the first time if you're getting confused) and you'll find yourself getting it.

Biologic

Memorising the book doesn't mean you will automatically know all the answers in S3. The questions still need to be reasoned out and, in a lot of cases, guessed.
In my opinion, studying does 2 things; it ensures you're not utterly lost in the science jargon of the questions and it makes your deductions more accurate in the questions (in other words, your guesses are more educated). It has been a while since I sat GAMSAT, but I can remember that there were only a handful of questions that I was absolutely confident about, and I was ok at chemistry. The rest I had to just exclude as many wrong answer choices as possible and use a bit of logic to find the best choice. I ended up with a 66 in S3.
I didn't bother with the workbook by the way. Actually I didn't bother with any questions that weren't either MCAT or GAMSAT standard, just in case I lured myself into a false sense of competency.

supraspinaswim

ye having same problem - study the reactions of alkenes and alkynes along with mass spec and stuff . Should I at least cover it to be safe rather than sorry ?