The following are actual student responses to the question: Why is it necessary

Question

The following are actual student responses to the question: Why is it necessary to balance chemical equation? The chemicals will not react until you have added the correct mole ratios. A certain number of products cannot be formed w certain number of reactants. The balanced equation tells you how much reactant you need and allows you to predict how much product you II make. A mole-to-mole ratio must be established for the reaction to occur as written. Justify the best choice, and for choices you did not pick, explain what is wrong with them.

Explanation / Answer

(d) is the right option. Explanation: A balanced equation(eg. aA + bB --> cC + dD) tells us that 'a' moles of reactant A reacted with 'b' moles of reactant B to give 'c' moles of C and 'd' moles of D. It is primarily important to know how many moles of reactant give how many moles of product. Let's say we want a certain number of moles of product, we can adjust the number of moles of reactant required, accordingly.

(a) the chemicals will react according to the number of moles present irrespective of whether the equation is balanced or not, but we cannot determine how many moles were used or produced.- hence, incorrect option

(b) the correct products will be formed even if the reactants are not in their required ratio, but the amount of products will be lower than expected since the reactants weren't measured before adding. - hence, incorrect option

(c) same reason as (b)

(e) this is a true statement, but not the reason to balance them.

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