Question

Charlie is balancing an equation. She has identified the atoms and counted the number of each in the reactants and products. What would Charlie adjust to make the number of atoms in the reactants the same as the number of atoms in the products?

coefficients
subscripts
superscripts
parentheses

Answer 1

coefficients

Changing coefficients changes how many molecules (or moles) of each substance are present, which changes the atom counts. You should not change subscripts (that alters the chemical identity), superscripts (charges/isotopes), or parentheses (only group atoms) to balance equations.