00:02
Hi there.
00:03
This question is asking about a reaction catalyzed by an enzyme.
00:08
So let's talk about enzymes for just a moment.
00:11
An enzyme is, of course, a biological catalyst, which means that it speeds up reactions, typically by lowering the activation energy.
00:35
Enzymes are proteins, and they are very specific to a reaction, which means they only typically will catalyze a single type of reaction.
00:58
The other thing about them is they do not change the products or the amount of products, only the rate.
01:19
So we have biological reactions that are actually too slow to sustain life without an enzyme being present to speed those reactions up.
01:27
All right, let's look at our answer options here.
01:30
We have four of them, and we are looking for which one is true of a reaction that is catalyzed by an enzyme.
01:38
The first one says enzymes always drive reactions towards chemical equilibrium.
01:44
Well, that is false.
01:47
What enzymes do is they speed up reactions.
01:50
They're not necessarily going to always drive them towards chemical equilibrium...