Question

The solution in which saturation is not achieved is called:

• A. Super saturated
• B. Unsaturated
• C. Saturated
• D. Suspended

Hint:

In unsaturated solutions, more solute can still be added until the solution reaches saturation.

Answer 1

The Correct Option is B

Picture slowly stirring sugar into a cup of water. As long as every spoonful keeps disappearing, the cup has not yet reached its limit.

1. Super saturated: this stage would come only after forcing in extra sugar beyond the cup's normal limit, usually by heating first, which is well past the stage being described here.
2. Unsaturated: while every new spoonful of sugar keeps dissolving without any settling at the bottom, the cup is still short of its limit. That is exactly the unsaturated stage.
3. Saturated: this stage begins only once a spoonful stops dissolving and starts settling at the bottom, showing the limit has been reached, not before it.
4. Suspended: this word does not describe a dissolving stage at all; it describes particles floating without dissolving, a different situation altogether.

Since sugar still dissolves fully before the limit is reached, that early stage is called unsaturated.

Answer 2

Place these terms on a ladder measuring how much solute is dissolved relative to the limit: unsaturated below the limit, saturated right at it, super saturated above it. Suspended does not belong on this ladder at all.

1. Super saturated: this rung sits above the limit, describing more solute dissolved than should be possible, not a solution still short of saturation.
2. Unsaturated: this rung sits below the limit, exactly describing a solution that has not yet reached saturation and can still dissolve more.
3. Saturated: this rung sits exactly at the limit, describing a solution that has fully reached it, not one that is short of it.
4. Suspended: this term is not a rung on the dissolving ladder at all, since it describes undissolved particles rather than a stage of dissolving.

The rung below the saturation limit is unsaturated, so that is the correct answer.