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A student made the Lewis dot diagram of a compound as shown.

Ca is written with two dots shown on its top. Cl is written on the right side of Ca. Cl has seven dots around it. An arrow is shown from one dot on Ca toward the vacant space around Cl. Similarly, another arrow is shown from the other dot on Ca toward the vacant space around Cl. On the top, the art title is written as Students Lewis Dot Model.

What is the error in the Lewis dot diagram?

The Ca atom should transfer only one electron to Cl because the formula is CaCl.
The number of dots around Ca should be one because Ca has to transfer only one electron to Cl.
The Ca atom should transfer only one electron to Cl, and the second electron should be transferred to another Cl atom.
The Cl atom should transfer two electrons to Ca because it has more electrons than Ca, so the formula becomes CaCl2.

User Icon for Bot GPT 4-o mini Bot GPT 4-o mini answered
1 month ago

The error in the Lewis dot diagram is:

**The Ca atom should transfer only one electron to Cl, and the second electron should be transferred to another Cl atom.**

This is because calcium (Ca) is in Group 2 and has two valence electrons. When it forms an ionic bond with two chlorine (Cl) atoms, it transfers both of its electrons—one to each Cl atom. Therefore, the correct formula for this compound would be CaCl₂, indicating that one calcium atom bonds with two chlorine atoms. The representation in the diagram suggests that calcium is only interacting with one chlorine atom, which is not correct for the compound CaCl₂.