What are some common mistakes students make with skeletal structures in organic chemistry?

Question

Ella Allen · Accepted Answer

Forgetting or adding lines as they draw the structures.

Although I'm not a teacher, I recall that adding extra lines or forgetting them was the most frequent error people made when I was a student. Some people think that the atom is in the middle of the line when, in fact, it is usually in the middle because a line represents the connection between two carbon atoms. People occasionally make the error of obtaining more bonds or even more carbon atoms than necessary. I hope the others can add any more common mistakes that I'm not aware of that deducted points from our grades back then. That's the only thing that comes to mind.

Santiago Alfonso · Answer

undefined Some common mistakes students make with skeletal structures in organic chemistry include:

1. Forgetting to include all atoms: Students may overlook adding hydrogen atoms to satisfy the valency of carbon atoms, resulting in incomplete structures.
2. Miscounting carbon atoms: It's common for students to miscount the number of carbon atoms in a molecule, leading to incorrect skeletal structures.
3. Incorrect placement of functional groups: Students may place functional groups incorrectly or miss them altogether when drawing skeletal structures.
4. Ignoring stereochemistry: Neglecting to consider stereochemistry, such as geometric or optical isomerism, can result in incomplete or inaccurate representations of organic molecules.
5. Confusion with bond angles and geometry: Students may struggle to accurately depict the three-dimensional arrangement of atoms in a molecule, leading to incorrect bond angles or geometry in skeletal structures.