[mrlucky0]

In the biochemistry and medicinal chemistry courses that I'm taking now, I've realized that part of succeeding in the course is a function of one's ability to recall (draw out) and recognize chemical structures. Generally I can recall important structures to memory.

I wanted to get some advice on how you guys do commit important structures to memory. Amino acids acids for instance, I want to retain their structures in my long-term memory but I find that I'll need to draw their structures again every once in a while to keep myself from forgetting.

Besides repeatedly draw the structures on paper here are some other techniques that I use:

1. Associate other things with the structure (ie. what it does, precursor to another molecule)

2. Learn something interesting about the substance.

3. Identify important moieties and functional groups.

I appreciate any other strategies or tips you guys can offer.

[weiguxp]

i usually build flash cards or post the structures on my wall

[AhmedEzatAlzawalaty]

may be u have to draw them every day

[macman104]

I learned my amino acids and nucleotide bases with flashcards.  I had the structure one side, and the name and 1 & 3 letter codes on the other side.  Every night before I went to sleep, I flipped through them.  Eventually I didn't need to draw them out, I could just verbally describe the structure to myself.  If you do it every night, I bet you have them down in no more than a week and a half.

EDIT:  If you're like me and like to print out notecards (yes, I'm weird, but they're very clean looking then!), I can send you a word document that has all of the structures and abbreviations set to notecard size for printing.

[AhmedEzatAlzawalaty]

ok thats will be cool i will be grateful
u know i draw structures of alkaloids u know they are so complex and i draw them every day its not alot of time to draw them the next day and so on.
thanx