Alevel chemistry mechanisms reagent and conditions urgent help !! (Year 2)

Hi! Revising for organic chemistry for the real alevel.
I’ve always been confused on what it means when the question asks you:
Identify the reagent and the condition?
(I do AQA chemistry)
What does condition mean? I know it can mean ‘hot’ or ‘reflux’ but can it also mean
Aqueous, dilute, a catalyst etc?

Reply 1

saturn.rings

so basically they can ask you three things about a reaction, it can be Reagent, Condition and Mechanism/ Reaction type.

Reagent - what is acc reacting together to give the product
Condition - the type of environment the reactants are in when they react, so like you said, it can be Heat, Pressure, Under reflux, Room temp.
Mechanism/Reaction type - the name of what reaction is occuring, so any mechanisms

example: give the reactants, conditions and mechanism for Aldehydes ---> Carboxylic acid
Reagent - Kr2Cr2O7
Condition - heat under reflux
mechanism/ reaction type: oxidation

and to answer your q, you have to say whether the reagent is conc., dilute or aq. by just putting aq. or conc. before the reagent, and you don't need to state whether a catalyst is present unless they ask, (which they probably won't)

(edited 1 year ago)

Reply 2

harlz_chalamet

Original post by saturn.rings

so basically they can ask you three things about a reaction, it can be Reagent, Condition and Mechanism/ Reaction type.
Reagent - what is acc reacting together to give the product
Condition - the type of environment the reactants are in when they react, so like you said, it can be Heat, Pressure, Under reflux, Room temp.
Mechanism/Reaction type - the name of what reaction is occuring, so any mechanisms
example: give the reactants, conditions and mechanism for Aldehydes ---> Carboxylic acid
Reagent - Kr2Cr2O7
Condition - heat under reflux
mechanism/ reaction type: oxidation
and to answer your q, you have to say whether the reagent is conc., dilute or aq. by just putting aq. or conc. before the reagent, and you don't need to state whether a catalyst is present unless they ask, (which they probably won't)

Thanks for this!!
And for the catalyst, I just did a question where the condition was a catalyst. I’ll tag the paper where I saw the question

https://filestore.aqa.org.uk/sample-papers-and-mark-schemes/2020/november/AQA-74052-QP-NOV20.PDF

For question 6.1, the condition was the AlCl3 catalyst, which is really annoying because I put ethanoyl chloride and AlCl3 catalyst as the reagents and I just randomly put ‘hot’ as the condition

Here’s the markscheme
https://filestore.aqa.org.uk/sample-papers-and-mark-schemes/2020/november/AQA-74052-W-MS-NOV20.PDF

Thanks so much anyway though!!