Resource Guide

This list is derived from my bookmarks on delicious. It is far from comprehensive – if you want even more links, go there. If you want a daily feed of these resources you can follow me on twitter. I don’t earn any money from recommending these sites.

Online Courses

• Academic Earth has “Organic Chemistry – Structure and Reactivity” by UC Berkeley professor Peter C. Vollhardt.
• Youtube has a complete set of lectures on Organic Reactions and Pharmaceuticals (Chem 14D)  by Steven Hardinger of UCLA

Online Textbooks

• Prof. William Reusch’s Virtual Textbook of Organic Chemistry is the best.

Youtube Videos

• Khan Academy has a large number of lectures on organic chemistry. They are a decent overview of the course material in Org 1 and Org 2.
• Freelance Teacher has more organic chemistry videos than you can watch in your lifetime.  They are awesome as a step-by-step guide at solving problems.  The trouble can be knowing where to look (e.g. a 50+ video series on resonance is comprehensive but not useful). One suggestion might be to use Khan for the big picture and then FT for some guidance on solving specific problems.

Online Quizzes

• Ian Gould’s Arizona sites have awesome quick quizzes.
• Reusch’s Virtual Textbook site is good.
• Here are some practice problems from UCLA
• This page at Towson University has good quizzes on lots of different reactions
• This site at FSU has lots of summaries of different reactions
• This page at Claremont College has quizzes on different reactions
• This page has practice multiple-choice concept tests
• These starburst problems can be good for learning reactions (depending on which one you pick)
• I put together some quizzes on memorize.com that I update occasionally. Good for learning functional groups and vocabulary.
• Some NMR spectral problems can be found at UCLA and at Colorado and at Claremont
• “Chemtiles – The Game”  and “The Spectral Game“
• No list would be complete without OMG Zombies. (chemistry related? youbetcha)

Online Exams

• SUNY at Stony Brook’s Random Exam Generator (awesome)
• A lot of good old o-chem exams can be found at AceOrganicChem
• University of Maryland
• Tough, but fun old Princeton exams from Maitland Jones
• University of Calgary
• Claremont

Other Resources

• Old timey website but has useful reaction flashcards.
• You can look up NMR and IR spectra for pretty much any compound you’ll ever find here. Protip: search by CAS number
• Tables of IR resonances and NMR resonances
• ChemTube3D lets you see organic reactions in…. 3D

MCAT/DAT/PCAT Related

• The best community by far are the Student Doctor Network Forums
• WikiPremed has a lot of useful stuff.
• Coursesaver.com is supposed to be good for the DAT (subscription required)

Books

• Organic Chemistry As A Second Language by David Klein.
• Arrow Pushing In Organic Chemistry by Daniel Levy. Has great problems.
• Pushing Electrons by Daniel Weeks
• Organic Chemistry I For Dummies by Arthur Winter
• A Handbook of Organic Chemistry Mechanisms by Peter Wepplo

Places to Ask Questions

• Chemical Forums 
• /r/chemhelp
• SDN Forums (MCAT/DAT only, no homework)

To Check Out After You Level Up

• Totally Synthetic is where awesomeness reigns (self-promoting link here)
• Synthetic Remarks is delightful
• BRSM is beautiful and thorough
• Curious Wavefunction is thoughtful
• New Reactions is keepin’ it real