[toadesque]

And that we have to give an example of each one.

So does he mean we have to memorize a specific example of each of those rxns and then just write them down? There's no mechanisms or anything to do?

[Arctic-Nation]

Maybe, maybe not. We don't know the intentions of your professor. For basic reactions there is little gain in knowing the name without knowing the mechanism anyway.

[Borek]

Let's face it - memorizing some stuff never hurts. It becomes problematic when teaching/learning is based on memorization mainly.

Is there a real difference between questions "Give an example of S_N1 reaction" and "Give an example of Canizzaro reaction"? First one is more general, but in both cases there is a name given to some kind of mechanism. The ONLY difference is that Canizzaro was Italian, while nationality of S_N1 is unknown

Problem is, people are scared when they hear word "memorize", because in todays teaching students are conditioned: "memorization is bad, so we will not memorize anything". Bu*.*t. Think how many common names of chemicals you have memorized not even knowing when. Did it any harm to you?