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Chemistry 2710 Spring 2000 Quiz 1 solution

The rate of formation of P is the slope of the graph of p as a function of t. This slope can be found by linear regression. My calculator gives tex2html_wrap_inline35 . The rate of reaction is therefore tex2html_wrap_inline37 or tex2html_wrap_inline39 .

There are two possible approaches to answering the question of whether this is truly an initial rate:

  1. After 10s, only 3.2mmol/L of P has been formed. This corresponds to using up about 4.8mmol/L of A, less than 1% of the amount initially present. This is quite a small amount so the slope probably represents an initial rate.
  2. If we plot p as a function of t, we get the following graph:

    tex2html_wrap45

    The data fits a line very nicely, so we are still in the initial rate region.



Marc Roussel
Fri Jan 14 11:08:57 MST 2000