Question

Can someone help? This is from my organic chem study guide.

Answer 1

The first reaction has two possibilities for the attack of the propylure anion, at position 2 or 4 respect from the carbonyl oxygen. Since this is a very strong nucleophile, the nucleophilic addition on the carbonyl group will be favored:

?

The other possible (minoritary) product would be:

As for the second reaction, it is an electrophilic aromatic substittion reaction, where Br⁺ is the electrophile. There are two substituents on the aromatic ring already, an ethyl and a methoxi group. These are both orto-para directors, which means that the activated positions for the substitution will be those that are orto and para respective to them both:

Position 3 has a very high steric hindrance from the two vicinal substituents groups, so the substitution will occur on positions 1 and 2, yielding as products:

Br