I am pretty confused on this.

Question

1. Pick the appropriate solvent to dissolve
A) Sodium Chloride (ionic)
B) Sodium Nitrate (ionic)

both have the choices of
1) water
2) acetone
3)ethanol
4)methanol
5)carbon tetrachloride
6)toluene
7)hexane

Answer 1

Both are ionic therefore both are polar bonds and would dissolve in a polar solvent like H2O.
I would expect both to be somewhat soluble in methanol and ethanol. They are polar but not as much as H2O.

Answer 2

I know they are somewhat polar but the program im using is confusing me.
for A) on the first attempt i answered just water
second attempt methanol and water and the third attempt water methanol and ethanol
all come back incorrect.

for B) on the first attempt i tried just water and on the second attempt water, ethanol and methanol.

i don't understand where im going wrong here

Answer 3

If that's all there is the the question, I would answer water for both. There may be more to the question than that. "Appropriate" could be the ringer word. Have you summarized the question or is this all there is?

Answer 4

that's all there is unfortunately. answering just water for both gave me incorrect feedback.

Answer 5

I got it. Both have the same answers of water, methanol, ethanol and acetone!

Answer 6

I don't like the question. It's too vague. For ALL of the answers it should have been quoted as something like this. "What solvents will dissolve NaCl and NaNO3?"
To ask what is the APPROPRIATE solvent makes one wonder appropriate for what? Thanks for letting me know.