i tried drawing the bone line structure for 2-cyclopentenol and 3-cyclopentenol which is one of an exercise i am doing for class. i looked up the correct answer and apparently cyclopentenol has a double bond in the carbon ring and the 2 or 3 changes its position. based on the name alone how the heck am i supposed to know that i'm supposed to draw cyclopentenol with a double bond?

pentEnol instead of pentAnol

As Fuzzwood hinted there is a lot to a name - try having a read of this page , or a more complex one - if they don't suit try searching on organic molecule naming conventions

As the others have said, you might like to look up basic naming conventions. The big hint as to how you were meant to know there was a double bond was the 'en' (for alkENe) as opposed to 'an' (for alkANe) as Fuzzwood pointed out. Similarly, if it were a triple bond, you would see 'yn' for alkYNe. IUPAC conventions can get confusing with large, non-linear molecules, but basic ones such asnyoursnarenfairly easy to figure out once you get a feel for the prefixes, etc. And of course the best way to get a feel for it is to practice. Start small and work your way up and you'll soon start to find it comes quite naturally to you.