GRE Subject Test: Chemistry › Entropy
Which of the following reactions has a positive value for change in entropy ?
Water evaporates into water vapor
Water freezing into ice
A salt precipitates out of a saturated solution
Entropy is a measure of the disorder of a system. In other words, when the components of a system become more uniform and spread out, the entropy of the system has increased. For example, when a liquid becomes gaseous, the molecules separate from one another, increasing the disorder of the system. As a result, the evaporation of water results in an increase in entropy.
All other options result in a more ordered system, which decreases entropy.