Kaplan Nursing Entrance Exam Practice 2025 – Comprehensive Prep

Electronegativity plays a crucial role in understanding how atoms interact within a molecule, particularly in the formation and characteristics of chemical bonds. By defining electronegativity as the tendency of an atom to attract electrons in a bond, it becomes clear that this property directly affects the strength of the attraction between bonded atoms.

When two atoms with differing electronegativities form a bond, the atom with the higher electronegativity will attract the shared electrons more strongly. This can lead to polar covalent bonds, where there is an unequal distribution of electron density, which enhances the overall strength of the bond because of the partial positive and negative charges that develop. Additionally, the differences in electronegativity can influence the ionic character of a bond, where a significant difference can result in electron transfer instead of sharing.

The other options, while related to molecular behavior, do not directly stem from the concept of electronegativity in the same way. Electronegativity does not determine the shape of the molecule, as molecular geometry is influenced by spatial arrangements of electron pairs and the hybridization of orbitals, rather than just by electron attraction. Similarly, while bond length can be a consequence of the types of bonds formed (single, double, or