How does this work

The word describe in this question tells your teen that the first thing they need to do is describe the differences in the reactions between both sodium and aluminium with water. Describe simply means tell us the facts. Your teen would need to detail what one would observe in both of these reactions in such a way that emphasises the differences between them. Describe the reaction of one, and then the other. I never said this was string theory. The word explain tells your teen that they need to explain why the reactions are different. For this part your teen will need to have done the hard yakka. Theyll need to understand why the different atomic structures of sodium and aluminium make them react with water differently, and how this corresponds with the different reaction observations.