Accuracy of water's physical and chemical properties

Steps:

• Evaluate statement 1: Water's high specific heat capacity absorbs heat without large temperature changes, stabilizing aquatic and biological environments.
• Evaluate statement 2: Water's latent heat of vaporization is high (not low), enabling efficient evaporative cooling in mammals like sweating.
• Evaluate statement 3: Negative ions attract the partial positive charge (δ+) on water's hydrogen atoms, forming hydration shells.
• Evaluate statement 4: In aqueous solutions with ions, the hydrophobic effect causes non-polar molecules to cluster together, not push apart.

Why B is correct:

• Statements 1 and 3 align with water's high specific heat for thermal stability and its polarity enabling ion hydration via δ+ hydrogen attraction.

Why the others are wrong:

• A includes incorrect statements 2 and 4.
• C selects only false statement 2 about low latent heat.
• D pairs two incorrect statements, 2 and 4.

Final answer: B