ShmoopTube

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[ musical flourish ]

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And here's your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by homemade volcanoes.

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We prefer homemade cookies, but we'll settle for science projects instead.

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All right, solution A has a pH of 3, while solution B has a pH of 8.

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Solution A is what?

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And here are the potential answers.

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[ mumbles ]

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All right. Well, this is asking, uh,

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what is a pH? Hmm? And how do you spell it?

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Well, first, it's a measure of acidity

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and, second, it's also kind of weird.

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The pH scale runs from zero to 14.

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The lower the number, the more acidic the substance is.

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The higher the number, the more base it is.

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If a substance has a pH of seven, like

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plain water does, well, it means it's completely neutral.

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Why couldn't the scale be one through ten or one through 20 or something simple? Hmm?

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Well, sometimes scientists just like to make things confusing.

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Consider it a perk of the job.

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Well, here's one last tidbit of info before we get to the solution

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or, uh, answer. We already have the solution.

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See what we did there?

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A lower pH means the solution has a higher concentration

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of H+ ions.

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And a higher concentration of H+ ions

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means the solution is more acidic.

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Now, onto the answer.

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If the solution A has a pH of three, it's acidic.

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That alone is enough to eliminate options C and D. Good-bye.

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And if solution B has a pH of eight, we know it's

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basic. Because a pH of greater than seven is, well, basic.

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So solution A is acidic and solution B is basic.

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The correct answer is option B.

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Acids and bases and bears, oh, my!

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[ chuckles ] [ music ]

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