Chemistry 324 - Spring 2008

Once again, exam results were uniformly good. I have written comments on your exams and posted answers/comments on selected problems here. I don’t assign numerical scores to exams in this class, so if you would like additional feedback, please come see me before you leave, sometime this summer, or next fall.

A number of you have stopped by to talk about the exam’s problems, or perhaps I should say, problems you’re having with the exam.

In order to minimize any inequities that might arise from me giving information to some students and not others, here is a summary of major items that I have communicated:

Problem #1

1. I mis-lettered the parts of problem #1. It starts with part b instead of part a. Oh well. Please follow the lettering in the exam.
2. C-Li bonds are drawn as covalent in the figures. This is convenient for the artist (me), but for purposes of drawing and analyzing pericyclic reactions, you may find it more useful to view this as an ionic bond.
3. Other aspects of the formulas might also be adjusted to make them more convenient for drawing and analyzing pericyclic reactions. (Just one of several possible hints: there is more than one way to draw a benzene ring…)

Problem #2

1. I have given you incomplete information about stereochemistry. I don’t intend to change that. Do the best you can. Perhaps more than one outcome is possible. Perhaps not.

Overall

1. Although this is a take-home exam, it is not meant to be a marathon exam. It was constructed as a take-home so that I wouldn’t have to sacrifice class time for the exam, and you would be able to do some modeling. I really figured that the non-modeling portion of the exam could be completed in an hour or less.

Exam #2 (2 page PDF). Due Monday, April 28, at 3 pm in my mailbox or my office (slip your exam under my door).

Notice that you must also email models to me for one problem so that I can examine them.

Exam results were uniformly good. I have written comments on your exams and posted answers/comments on selected problems here. I don’t assign numerical scores to exams in this class, so if you would like additional feedback, please come see me.

Exam #1 (2 page PDF). Due Saturday, March 8, at 3 pm in my mailbox or my office (slip your exam under my door).

Notice that you must also email models to me for one problem so that I can examine them.