A chemical reaction produces formaldehyde, with a chemical formula of CH2O. Carbon is in Group 4A, oxygen is in Group 6A, and hydrogen is in Group 1A on the periodic table. In one to two sentences, describe the bonds in a molecule of formaldehyde in terms of valence electrons.

I have no idea what your teacher wants for this but here goes something.

C atom has 4 valence electrons, each H atom has two and the oxygen has 6 valence electrons for a total of 12 electrons. In H2C=O, C shares 2 electrons with EACH H atom, and four electrons with the oxygen atom. So there is a single bond between C and each H atom and a double bond between C and O. Said another way, C has four bonds (1 each with H and 2 with O). You can Google "Lewis electron dot structure of formaldehyde" and draw that. As I've described above you will use 12 electrons. For whatever it's worth, if I were teaching the class you could talk all day using words to describe the bonding but if you couldn't draw the Lewis electron dot structure I would not give any credit. Have a great new year.

Well, it goes like this: Carbon is searching for love and wants to bond with four other atoms, oxygen is trying to catch its breath and wants to bond with two other atoms, while hydrogen is a bit clingy and only wants to bond with one atom. So, in formaldehyde, carbon forms four bonds, oxygen forms two bonds, and hydrogen forms one bond, resulting in the CH2O molecule. They're like the perfect chemistry trio, all bonded up!

In a molecule of formaldehyde, carbon forms four covalent bonds by sharing its four valence electrons, while oxygen forms two covalent bonds and hydrogen forms one covalent bond by sharing their valence electrons.

In a molecule of formaldehyde, each carbon atom forms two single covalent bonds with two hydrogen atoms, and one double covalent bond with an oxygen atom, where the sharing of valence electrons occurs between atoms to complete their octet.