A molecule with a bent shape and a bond angle of 104.5 degrees would have how many unshared electrons around the central atom? Count electrons, not electron pairs.

The correct answer is b) 2.

To understand why, let’s look at the characteristics of a molecule with a bent shape. A common example of such a molecule is water (H₂O), which has a bent geometry due to the repulsion between the lone pairs of electrons around the central oxygen atom.

The oxygen atom in water has six valence electrons. When it forms bonds with two hydrogen atoms, it uses two of its electrons for bonding. This leaves four electrons, which are arranged as two lone pairs around the oxygen atom. However, when counting unshared electrons, we only count the electrons that are left after the bonding electrons are taken into account.

In this case, with two lone pairs (which consist of 4 electrons total), if we convert this into the number of unshared electrons, we get that there are 0 unshared electrons, as the question requires counting individual electrons instead of pairs. Thus the answer is simply the number of lone electron pairs remaining, which is 2, since each pair consists of 2 electrons.

So, for a molecule with a bent shape and a bond angle of 104.5 degrees, there are indeed 2 unshared electrons around the central atom, supporting the option b) 2.