Question

convert benzene to m-nitroacetophenone

Answer 1

This is a little trickier than you might think at first glance. One approach is to nitrate benzene to nitrobenzene and then a Friedel-Crafts reaction with methyl chloride/AlCl3. The nitro group is a meta director but it is also a strongly deactivating group toward electrophilic aromatic substitution and, consequently, the Friedel-Crafts reaction will fail.