Weak acid vs base

[Arya Bhalla 1H]

How do we determine whether a substance is a weak acid or base just from looking at it? For strong acids and bases we just memorize them, and this can be helpful when determining whether a salt is acidic or basic, but when given a simple acid or base that is not a salt, is there a way to figure out whether it is an acid or base?

[605733348]

I think we can judge based on our knowledge of strong acid and base.

[Evan L 2B]

Anything that is not a strong acid or base is considered weak. By memorizing the strong acids and bases you should know how to classify most compounds. When given a simple acid or base that is not a salt I determine whether the compound is an acid or base by looking at the formal charge, lone pair electrons, and hydrogen atoms.

[Amanda Tran 1D]

If you memorize all the strong acids and bases, you'll be able to deduce which ones are weak when given in a problem.

[Cindy Vo 3E]

We know from memorizing the strong acids and strong bases. There are fewer strong acids/bases than weak acids/bases, so I would recommend memorizing the strong acids/bases and then anything that isn't strong is weak.

[William Huang 1K]

you would need to remember the strong acids and bases and know that besides those, other acids and bases are weak.

[Kaira Shibata 1E]

Besides the strong acids/bases that we are to memorize, everything else is assumed to be a weak acid/base.

[Rebekah Jung 1C]

I would memorize strong acids and bases and anything else would be considered a weak acid or base.

[Crystal Ma 2J]

Like everyone else said, it's best to memorize but some things that can be helpful are, for example, that any acid with a COOH group in it is a weak acid!

[Eszter Kovacs 1A]

I think it's the easiest to memorize the list of strong acids and bases, and note that organic acids are generally considered to be weak.

[Isabelle Kim 3E]

If we have memorized the list of strong acids/bases, then we can assume that it is weak if it is not on that list. Although, there are some common weak acids/bases that you may want to look over. But, that is the way I thought about this.

[Naomi Christian 1E]

Any acid or base that is not classified as strong can be considered weak. So if you memorize all of the strong acids and bases then you should be good. :)