CHEMISTRY COMMUNITY

Quiz 3 Prep question 5 is a question about cholesterol electrophilic addition.

For this problem are we just supposed to memroize the steps and transition states?

If we were given an entirely new electrophilic addition example how would we know that it takes two steps to complete? (why does the Br here not just bond to the carbon in the same step that the hydrogen does?)

Electrophilic addition reactions are always two step mechanisms (and therefore always have two transition states). On the other hand SN2 reactions are all one step reactions with one transition state.

Also, for these reactions it will be a pi bond breaking to form two sigma bonds.