[Arait]

Hi, I just had a couple problems that are absolutely driving me insane.  They're a couple homework problems that I can't find a good explanation for in my textbook/notes/powerpoints.  The Perkin condensation problem is just flat out nowhere, and online sources aren't helping me much.  Normally, I wouldn't ask for help on something like this, but we only have 4 attempts per question, so I can't experiment as much with the answer as I would like without losing points.

Here a the main ones giving me trouble:









Any help would be appreciated.  A couple of these problems have follow up problems that I can't answer unless I get the first one correct.

[sjb]

Hi, I just had a couple problems that are absolutely driving me insane.  They're a couple homework problems that I can't find a good explanation for in my textbook/notes/powerpoints.  The Perkin condensation problem is just flat out nowhere, and online sources aren't helping me much.  Normally, I wouldn't ask for help on something like this, but we only have 4 attempts per question, so I can't experiment as much with the answer as I would like without losing points.

Here a the main ones giving me trouble:

Well, as you know this is a Perkin condensation, do things like http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Perkin_reaction&oldid=422941356 help?

What do you imagine the base will do to the carbonyl?

Any help would be appreciated.  A couple of these problems have follow up problems that I can't answer unless I get the first one correct.