A student performs a titration in order to determine the concentration of a hydrochloric acid solution. Early in the procedure, the flask is not placed directly under the burette and a small amount of the titrant, KOH, drains down the outside of the flask. How will this error affect the calculated value of the HCl concentration

Calculated value will be greater than the actual value here. The reason for this being that a small amount was wasted. An example for explanation of this can be:

suppose the solution required 10 ml of KOH. Now the reading will be from 0 to 10 ml in the buret. Since a small amount was wasted, let this wasted amount be 2 ml, so the reading will now start from 2 ml for the actual experiment and go till 12 ml. But the person taking the reading will observe the value to be 12 ml, hence his calculated value will be greater than actual value.

Explanation:

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