Organic Chemistry Memorization

Oh man, that's such a hard subject.

You need to understand addition and subtraction reactions, they are the most common in part 1. I know there's a lot of stuff on isomerism, like stereoisomers: diasteromers, enantiomers...

Know the functional groups, but what I remember the most are the reactions -- there's a ton of them, There's a lot of stuff on nucleophiles and electrophiles, these popup all the time in classroom conversations. Most importantly you attend class, and read ahead before class starts. I know you may not have time, but it'll determine a B grade from an F, trust me.

Should I memorize the name and structure of any organic compound that I come across?

I remember being asked to show the intermediate steps in a reaction between two provided chemicals. In that question you have to show all the intermediate chemicals that are produced (2 or more usually), and show how the electrons/atoms shift from one molecule to next. To answer this question, you will need to know what kind of starting chemicals you're dealing with, and that's determined by the functional groups they possess. You'll be given example problems in class, so by memorizing them, you have a quicker grasp of what to do on the test.