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A2 Chemistry People!

How are you finding it?

I've been revising organic chemistry and it's so damn long. Been revising acylation for the past hour and the addition-elimination reactions. :rofl:

The kinetics, equilibria and acid/base stuff is a walk in the park because it's GCSE maths though. Tsodsdsihashdaskjdkashdasjhd

@RonnieRJ - How good is your memory? How are you gonna pull off A2 Bio and A2 Chemistry without past papers? :rofl: (ofc not hating, your method seems to be working since you did well but it's impressive to the past paper community. :colone: )

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Original post by High Stakes
How are you finding it?

I've been revising organic chemistry and it's so damn long. Been revising acylation for the past hour and the addition-elimination reactions. :rofl:

The kinetics, equilibria and acid/base stuff is a walk in the park because it's GCSE maths though. Tsodsdsihashdaskjdkashdasjhd

@RonnieRJ - How good is your memory? How are you gonna pull off A2 Bio and A2 Chemistry without past papers? :rofl: (ofc not hating, your method seems to be working since you did well but it's impressive to the past paper community. :colone: )


Too many conditions, colours etc
Original post by samb1234
Too many conditions, colours etc


I leave the "memory only and no concept" content for later because I can just sit down and memorise it.
Reply 3
Mechanisms are piss easy. NMR and polymers though are another story...
Also, the mark scheme is so annoyingly specific :s-smilie:
Haven't looked at unit 5 yet tbh and don't really want to
Original post by High Stakes
I leave the "memory only and no concept" content for later because I can just sit down and memorise it.


Yeah true, it's just insanely dull to have to sit down and learn it. The theory isn't too bad though
Memorising the mechanisms is alright, you get it after a while.

For me it's proton NMR and 90% of transition metals that are going to ruin me :frown:
Idek what acylation is? o.0
Reply 7
Original post by Dinasaurus
Idek what acylation is? o.0


It's a nucleophilic addition elimination reaction between an amine and acyl chloride/(acid anhydride?) Acylation is also where you react alcl3 and an acyl chloride to form a reactive intermediate then react it with benzene. Don't call it acylation in the exam though. The mechanism name is the ideal answer.
(edited 8 years ago)
Original post by Manexopi
It's nucleophilic addition elimination where you react alcl3 and an acyl chloride to form a reactive intermediate then react it with benzene. It can also be a reaction between an amine and acyl chloride/(carboxylic acid?) as well. Don't call it acylation in the exam though. Nucleophilic add elim is the ideal answer.


I don't think we do that in OCR then, never come across that.
Reply 9
Original post by Dinasaurus
I don't think we do that in OCR then, never come across that.


Yeah, this is AQA spec stuff (: I just realised I made a bunch of chemistry errors in my post as well so will edit :s-smilie:
(edited 8 years ago)
Original post by Dinasaurus
Idek what acylation is? o.0


Original post by Manexopi
It's nucleophilic addition elimination where you react alcl3 and an acyl chloride to form a reactive intermediate then react it with benzene. It can also be a reaction between an amine and acyl chloride/(acid anhydride?) as well. Don't call it acylation in the exam though. Nucleophilic add elim is the ideal answer.


I think you got aromatic chemistry in there with the benzene.

Acylation is simply adding an acyl group and we do this through introducing nucleophiles (reagents that attack positively charged carbon atoms) to our "acid derivatives" which are (for A-level anyway) Acid Chlorides and Acid Anhydrides. You simply need to learn their reactions with the following nucleophiles:

Ammonia to produce an amide.
Primary amine to produce an N-substituted amide.
Alcohol to produce an Ester.
Water to produce a Carboxylic acid.

In the reactions, all the nucleophiles listed above are initially neutral so they lose a H+ ion (proton), we call this Hydrogen the "active hydrogen".

Oh and you have to remember why we prefer to use Ethanoic Anhydride over Ethanoyl Chloride which is because:

- Cheaper.
- Less corrosive.
- Reacts less readily with water.
- Produces a less harmful byproduct!
Original post by Manexopi
Mechanisms are piss easy. NMR and polymers though are another story...
Also, the mark scheme is so annoyingly specific :s-smilie:
Haven't looked at unit 5 yet tbh and don't really want to


I agree, theyre kind of a gift for me on the papers :lol:
Ikr, on the Chem4 2015 paper it asked for the molecular formula of TMS and apparently Si(CH3)4 was wrong (should have been SiC4H12

Unit 5 is quite bad... the ligand substation stuff is hard to remember and autocatalysis drives me insane :rofl:
any one doing or done their Chem isa's because those are what mess every thing up lol
I'm such a fool, I tried to rearrange the Henderson-Hasselbach formula because I remember I was able to simply it but I ended it just simplifying it down to pH=log(1/[H])

Which is the same as the original pH formula in the first place ;_;
Reply 14
Original post by High Stakes
I think you got aromatic chemistry in there with the benzene.

Acylation is simply adding an acyl group and we do this through introducing nucleophiles (reagents that attack positively charged carbon atoms) to our "acid derivatives" which are (for A-level anyway) Acid Chlorides and Acid Anhydrides. You simply need to learn their reactions with the following nucleophiles:

Ammonia to produce an amide.
Primary amine to produce an N-substituted amide.
Alcohol to produce an Ester.
Water to produce a Carboxylic acid.

In the reactions, all the nucleophiles listed above are initially neutral so they lose a H+ ion (proton), we call this Hydrogen the "active hydrogen".

Oh and you have to remember why we prefer to use Ethanoic Anhydride over Ethanoyl Chloride which is because:

- Cheaper.
- Less corrosive.
- Reacts less readily with water.
- Produces a less harmful byproduct!


The specification states we do need to know of acylation in aromatic (Friedel-Crafts acylation) Either way, I always refer to these reactions by the name of the mechanism anyways as opposed to acylation e.g nculeophilic addition elimination in the amine related stuff and electrophilic substitution in the aromatic chapter.

Thanks for the info though :3 I did a pack of aromatic and amine questions in one so I'm abit confused rn :colondollar:
(edited 8 years ago)
Reply 15
Original post by Amellia123
I agree, theyre kind of a gift for me on the papers :lol:
Ikr, on the Chem4 2015 paper it asked for the molecular formula of TMS and apparently Si(CH3)4 was wrong (should have been SiC4H12

Unit 5 is quite bad... the ligand substation stuff is hard to remember and autocatalysis drives me insane :rofl:


Ikr. The mark scheme is always the same as well 8)
Wait what? But what you said seems more specific?
Idek what ligand substitution is..or autocatalysis :frown: I want to get unit 4 down before I even attempt unit 5. But unit 4 isn't going too well either. I have problems with polymers,amino acids and nmr/mass spec - doesn't help that I find them boring xD Also acid/base calcuations. I'm so confused why some of those titration/buffer calculations require you to take the total volume into account whilst others dont.
Original post by Manexopi
Ikr. The mark scheme is always the same as well 8)
Wait what? But what you said seems more specific?
Idek what ligand substitution is..or autocatalysis :frown: I want to get unit 4 down before I even attempt unit 5. But unit 4 isn't going too well either. I have problems with polymers,amino acids and nmr/mass spec - doesn't help that I find them boring xD Also acid/base calcuations. I'm so confused why some of those titration/buffer calculations require you to take the total volume into account whilst others dont.


Depends on the volume added. It's all relative. Flick to page 48 in your A2 AQA book and look at the example. It's a change in 1%. Now, you can to be safe, always take into account the new volume...But since you're gonna be rounding up in the end a 1% change in vol won't have much of an affect. Whether you get 2.87 or 2.867
Reply 17
Original post by High Stakes
Depends on the volume added. It's all relative. Flick to page 48 in your A2 AQA book and look at the example. It's a change in 1%. Now, you can to be safe, always take into account the new volume...But since you're gonna be rounding up in the end a 1% change in vol won't have much of an affect. Whether you get 2.87 or 2.867

Okay that makes sense. What about the difference in question 2c in this paper? Sorry I'm so rubbish at chemistry :colondollar:
I got a completely different answer to the mark scheme (4.76)
http://filestore.aqa.org.uk/subjects/AQA-CHEM4-W-QP-JUN11.PDF
Don't know about you guys but I'm loving A2 Chemistry :u:
Original post by Manexopi
Ikr. The mark scheme is always the same as well 8)
Wait what? But what you said seems more specific?
Idek what ligand substitution is..or autocatalysis :frown: I want to get unit 4 down before I even attempt unit 5. But unit 4 isn't going too well either. I have problems with polymers,amino acids and nmr/mass spec - doesn't help that I find them boring xD Also acid/base calcuations. I'm so confused why some of those titration/buffer calculations require you to take the total volume into account whilst others dont.


Haha ikr that's why my teach said :lol: but apparently it was the 'molecular' formula
That's a good idea actually - tackling unit 5 when you've aced unit 4 will make revision for the real thing a lot easier :smile:
Same, amino acids, polymers and NMR are so boring, to help you I recommend this site (it does OCR and AQA)
http://www.a-levelchemistry.co.uk/

And with bases/bufferes all I can suggest is revise from past paper questions to cover ever style of question.

If there are any questions you would like help with I would be more than willing to help you. Feel free to post them on here or PM/VM me :smile:

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