Water is best described as which type of molecule?

• A. Polar molecule
• B. Nonpolar molecule
• C. Ionic compound
• D. Metallic compound

Answer: (A)

The main idea here is why a molecule can be polar. Water becomes polar because the shared electrons in the O–H bonds are pulled toward the oxygen, since oxygen is more electronegative than hydrogen. That creates a partial negative charge on the oxygen and partial positive charges on the hydrogens. The molecule isn’t flat; its bent shape means the individual bond dipoles don’t cancel each other out, giving water a net dipole moment. This combination—the unequal electron sharing plus the bent geometry—makes water a polar molecule. It’s not an ionic compound, which would involve full transfer of electrons to form ions; it’s not a metallic compound, which would involve metallic bonding with a "sea" of electrons; and it’s not nonpolar, which would require an even distribution of charge.