Two students made the Lewis dot diagrams of NH3. The diagrams are as shown.

Question

Two visual diagrams of an N H three molecule are shown. Student As diagram on the left has nitrogen at the center and connects with each hydrogen atom by an arrow pointing away from the nitrogen, one below, one on the right, and one on the left. There is a pair of dots above the nitrogen atom. Student Bs diagram on the right has nitrogen at the center connecting by a straight line to each hydrogen positioned below, to the left, and to the right of nitrogen. There is a pair of dots above the nitrogen atom.

Which student drew the correct Lewis dot diagram?

Only Student A
Only Student B
Both Student A and Student B
Neither Student A nor Student B

Answer 1

Both Student A and Student B drew the nitrogen atom correctly with a lone pair of electrons and three bonds to the hydrogen atoms. However, the way they represented the bonds is different.

Student A uses arrows to indicate the bonds, while Student B uses straight lines. In Lewis dot diagrams, bonds to other atoms are typically represented as lines (one line per bond), which corresponds to shared pairs of electrons.

Given that Student B uses the conventional representation of bonds (lines), Student B's diagram is the more standard way to depict the Lewis structure of NH3.

Therefore, the answer is: Only Student B.