Civil Service Exam Syllabus for IAS Main Exam – Chemistry Paper II

Civil Service Exam Syllabus for IAS Main Exam – Chemistry - Paper I

Paper – II

1. Delocalised Covalent Bonding :

Aromaticity, anti – aromaticity; annulenes, azulenes, tropolones, fulvenes, sydnones.

Reaction Mechanisms : General methods ( both kinetic and non – kinetic ) of study of mechanism of organic reactions: isotopic method, cross – over experiment, intermediate trapping, stereochemistry; energy of activation; thermodynamic control and kinetic control of reactions.

Reactive Intermediates : Generation, geometry, stability and reactions of carbonium ions and carbanions, free radicals, carbenes, benzynes and nitrenes.
Substitution Reactions : SN1, SN2 and SNi mechanisms; neighbouring group participation; electrophilic and nucleophilic reactions of aromatic compounds including heterocyclic compounds–pyrrole, furan, thiophene and indole.
Elimination Reactions : E1, E2 and E1cb mechanisms; orientation in E2 reactions–Saytzeff and Hoffmann; pyrolytic syn elimination – Chugaev and Cope eliminations.
Addition Reactions : Electrophilic addition to C=C and C≡C; nucleophilic addition to C=0, C≡N, conjugated olefins and carbonyls.
Reactions and Rearrangements :
1. Pinacol – pinacolone, Hoffmann, Beckmann, Baeyer – Villiger, Favorskii, Fries, Claisen, Cope, Stevens and Wagner-Meerwein rearrangements.
2. Aldol condensation, Claisen condensation, Dieckmann, Perkin, Knoevenagel, Witting, Clemmensen, Wolff – Kishner, Cannizzaro and von Richter reactions; Stobbe, benzoin and acyloin condensations; Fischer indole synthesis, Skraup synthesis, Bischler – Napieralski, Sandmeyer, Reimer-Tiemann and Reformatsky reactions.

3. Pericyclic Reactions :

Classification and examples; Woodward – Hoffmann rules – electrocyclic reactions, cycloaddition reactions [ 2+2 and 4+2 ] and sigmatropic shifts [ 1, 3; 3, 3 and 1, 5 ] FMO approach.

Preparation and Properties of Polymers : Organic polymers – polyethylene, polystyrene, polyvinyl chloride, teflon, nylon, terylene, synthetic and natural rubber.
Biopolymers: Structure of proteins, DNA and RNA.

5. Synthetic Uses of Reagents :

OsO4, HIO4, CrO3, Pb(OAc)4, SeO2, NBS, B2H6, Na – Liquid NH3, LiAlH4, NaBH4, n – BuLi and MCPBA.

6. Photochemistry :

Photochemical reactions of simple organic compounds, excited and ground states, singlet and triplet states, Norrish – Type I and Type II reactions.

7. Spectroscopy :

Principle and applications in structure elucidation :

Rotational : Diatomic molecules; isotopic substitution and rotational constants.
Vibrational : Diatomic molecules, linear triatomic molecules, specific frequencies of functional groups in polyatomic molecules.
Electronic : Singlet and triplet states; n p* and p p* transitions; application to conjugated double bonds and conjugated carbonyls – Woodward – Fieser rules; Charge transfer spectra.
Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (¹H NMR) : Basic principle; chemical shift and spin – spin interaction and coupling constants.
Mass Spectrometry : Parent peak, base peak, metastable peak, McLafferty rearrangement.

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