Identify the correct statements from the following: (a) Generally non-metals…

Whether an element reacts with water or with a dilute acid depends on how readily it loses electrons to form positive ions. Metals are electropositive: many of them can lose electrons and displace hydrogen from water or from a dilute acid, releasing hydrogen gas. Non-metals behave the opposite way — they tend to gain or share electrons rather than lose them, so as a general rule they cannot supply the electrons needed to displace hydrogen from either water or a dilute acid.

Applying this to the two statements: the claim that non-metals generally do not react with water follows directly from their lack of electropositive character, and the claim that non-metals generally do not react with acids follows from the very same property — an inability to donate electrons and reduce H+ ions to hydrogen gas. Since both statements describe the same underlying chemical behaviour, viewed through water and through acid respectively, both are correct together.

This lines up with the reactivity series used to compare metals: only strongly electropositive metals near the top of that series (such as sodium, potassium, and magnesium) displace hydrogen from water, and progressively less reactive metals still need a dilute acid to do so — non-metals never feature in that series performing either reaction. Checking each of the other option pairings against this rule:

• Accepting the water statement while rejecting the acid statement would require non-metals to behave differently toward acids than toward water, but the same lack of electropositive character rules out both reactions equally — treating the acid case as an exception is not supported.

• Accepting the acid statement while rejecting the water statement has the same problem in reverse: a non-metal that cannot donate electrons to a dilute acid equally cannot donate them to water, so singling out the acid case as the only correct description is not supported.

• Dismissing both descriptions goes too far in the other direction: non-metals genuinely lack the electron-donating character of metals, so the general absence of a reaction with water and the general absence of a reaction with dilute acids are both accurate, not overstatements to reject.

Because non-metals lack the electropositive character needed for either displacement reaction, both statements hold together, and the pairing that accepts both descriptions is the correct one.