Question

One student did an experiment with salt water. The steps of the experiment are shown below.

Pour half a cup of salt water into a pan.
Keep the pan outside in the sun for a day.
Allow all the water in the pan to evaporate.
Observe a white residue at the bottom of the pan.

The student's experiment demonstrates that when water evaporates, it

a. changes into solid minerals
b. leaves solid minerals behind
c. turns solid minerals into powder
d. converts gases into solid minerals

Answer 1

In the experiment. salt and water were mixed together. This means that the final solution included both the salt (solid mineral) and the water.

When the water completely evaporated, the student observed that the white residue which is actually the salt that he/she added from the beginning.

Based on this observation, we can conclude that water evaporated leaving the salt (solid mineral) behind as a residue.

Therefore, the best answer would be:
b. leaves solid minerals behind

Answer 2

B. Leaves solid minerals behind.