Question

An intensive property is defined as a:
A. Physical property of a system that depends on the system size or the amount of material in the system.
B. Physical property of a system that does not depend on the system size or the amount of material in the system.
C. Dependent on the internal properties of the system.
D. None of the above.

Answer 1

Hint: An intensive property doesn’t change when you take away some of the sample whereas an extensive property changes. An extensive property indicates the size of the system.
Example: Intensive-pressure, temperature and extensive- mass, volume.

Complete Step-by-Step solution:
An intensive property is a bulk property, meaning that it is a physical property of a system that does not depend on the system size or the amount of material in the system.
Examples of intensive properties include temperature(T), refractive index(n), density and hardness of an object.
When a diamond is cut, the pieces maintain their intrinsic hardness (until their size reaches a few atoms thick), so hardness is independent of the size of the system .
By contrast, an extensive property is additive for subsystems. This means the system could be divided into any number of subsystems, and the extensive property measured for each subsystem: the value of the property for the system would be the sum of the property for each subsystem.
For Example: Both the mass, and the volume of a diamond are directly proportional to the amount that is left after cutting it from the raw material. Mass and volume are extensive properties, but hardness is intensive.
Hence, Option B is the right answer.

Note: Colligative properties are the physical changes that result from adding solute to a solvent. Colligative Properties depend on how many solute particles are present as well as the solvent amount, but they do not depend on the type of solute particles. Eg. Elevation in boiling point, depression in freezing point.