Answer:
Higher
Explanation:
It looks as if you prepared zinc iodide by the reaction of zinc with iodine.
Your procedure was probably something like this:
You know the mass of iodine used, so you can get the mass of zinc by difference.
For example, assume you measured out 0.5 g of Iâ‚‚ and got 0.6 g of ZnIâ‚‚ as product. You would assume it contained 0.5 g of Iâ‚‚ and 0.1 g of Zn. Your calculated mass ratio would be Iâ‚‚/Zn = 5/1.
The impatient student loses 0.1 g of Iâ‚‚ by sublimation, so they get only 0.55 g of ZnIâ‚‚. However, they still think it contains the original 0.5 g of Iâ‚‚, and they determine the mass of Zn to be 0.05 g. Their calculated mass ratio is Iâ‚‚/Zn = 0.5/0.05 = 10/1.
If some of the iodine sublimes away, the calculated value for the mass ratio will be higher than the correct value.