So those who answered D were headed down the right path. Return to top of page Question 7, with Answer 7a. I have no idea what these terms mean. D and E are acceptable answers since that is information we want to know. The correct answer is A. 7b.
Chlorine is more electronegative and attracts the electrons more strongly.
Percentages for this question, with comments This question was another tough judgement call. HCl, or hydrochloric acid, is generally recognized as dissociating in water, which led many student to feel that it was ionic. In fact, this question came up in class. It may be hard to tell from the chart, but actually most people who attempted an explanation did a pretty good job of giving a reasonable explanation that was consistent with their answer in part a. The major distractor was, as described above, the acid nature of HCl.