Question

The IUPAC name of anisole is:
A. Ethoxybenzene
B. Methoxybenzene
C. Propoxybenzene
D. Butoxybenzene

Answer 1

Hint:- IUPAC stands for International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry and the chemical formula of anisole is \[{C_7}{H_8}O\]. So, we have to only draw the structure of anisole and then split it into different compounds to get its IUPAC name.

Complete answer:
As we know that benzene is a chemical compound and its formula is written as \[{C_6}{H_6}\].
And the structure of benzene is

where each vertex of the hexagon had one hydrogen atom attached with carbon atom.
Now as we know that oxy group is written with ether compounds. And structure of ether is

where R should be an alkyl group.
And alkyl groups are those groups which have 2n+1 hydrogen atoms for n carbon atoms.
Like some of the alkyl groups were,

So, meth represents one carbon, eth represents two carbons, prop represents three carbons and but represents four carbons.
So, oxy groups with one carbon atom should be methoxy, oxy groups with two carbon atoms should be ethoxy, oxy groups with three atoms should be propoxy and the oxy group with four carbon atoms should be butoxy.

Now as we know that the structure of anisole is

. So, we can clearly see that it has one oxy group (ether group). And the oxy group has one carbon atom. So, this must be methoxy.
So, the IUPAC name of anisole must be methoxybenzene.

Hence, the correct option will be B.

Note:- Whenever we come up with this type of problem, we should remember that the meth, eth, prop, but, hex, hept, oct, nan, dec are the number of carbon atoms in that group. So, if these are written at the start of the name of any group then there must be 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 carbon atoms respectively in that group. And we will get the IUPAC name of any compound by just joining the names of all compounds from which that compound is made up of.