Molecular Shape Name

[Ying Yan 1F]

Is it necessary to remember the names of all the molecular shapes? I know linear, triangular planarm, tetrahedral are very common molecular shapes so it's good to remember them, but what about the other shapes such as trigonal bipyramidal, square pyramidal, etc.? Thank you!

[Angela Patel 2J]

I think you should try to remember all of them since it will help you remember how the structure looks. It's probably not 100% necessary, but it would be helpful.

[KMenjivar_3A]

I recommend to learn all the other shapes, including the ones that contain lone pairs.

[SMIYAZAKI_1B]

I would agree with the other students and say that it would definitely help you to understand all of the shape names and also try to remember the bond angles. At least on the midterm, we did have a molecule with more than 8 valence electrons in the valence shell.

[Katherine Chhen 3I]

Would there be an easier way to memorize all the shape names or how to determine which molecule has what shape?

[Kate Osborne 1H]

I think it's necessary to learn the names for all the shapes that Dr. Lavelle talks about in lecture. I found it easiest to memorize when I looked at all shapes that have the same number of electron domains and memorized them in decreasing bonding domain order.

[derinceltik1K]

It's definitely important to know the geometric names. They are the whole point with VSEPR. And Dr. Lavelle mentioned certain details that we don't need to know like the diagrams where it shows which part of the molecule is closer and which atoms are in the back .
But the shape, name and the angle we are expected to know.

[ABombino_2J]

Yes, you should know the shape names as well as the bonding angles. These are easiest to memorize when you look at them in terms of total bonding regions as opposed to individually. You do not need to know how to draw the structure in 3d space, only the lewis structures; 3d will be reserved for organic chem. However, understanding the structure in 3d space will help understand why the bond angles are what they are.

[Claire Grover 3G]

My TA said that we have to know all of them, and how to predict which shapes various molecules will be.

[Bryce Barbee]

I think that we probably just have to know the ones that were said in lecture.

[April Pazos 3D]

It would be helpful to be familiar with all names not just the most common.

[Michelle Xie 2B]

I think we will need to know most of the names.

[bellaha4F]

Knowing all of them will be the best I think, test-wise

[Jade Hinds 2B]

We can all agree that based upon what we've recently learned in lecture, VSEPR and molecular shape naming is basically all that will be on test 2!

[andrewcj 2C]

Some shapes come from others, so it might not be necessary to explicitly memorize every shape. For example, bent comes from a tetrahedral shape with 2 lone pairs, but you don't have have to necessarily memorize bent. Instead, just think about a tetrahedral shape and remove 2 atoms.

[Jorge Ramirez_4H]

What's the difference between linear and I think it was bent?

[AKatukota]

It is helpful to remember the shape names as well as bond angles.

[Michelle Le 1J]

What's the difference between linear and I think it was bent?

The difference between the two is their bond angles, with linear it's 180, while with bent it's about 109.5.