My chemistry is extremely rusty, but I thought that even if the reaction was at equilibrium, there is still a rate of reaction--it's just that the forward and backward reaction rates are the same, so there's no net change.
(anyone with a better knowledge of chemistry please correct me if I'm wrong)
The rate of the reaction would be the net, which is by definition 0 at equilibrium, as you described. So the answer SHOULD have been 0, but to be a question worth putting on a mid-term for biochemistry, the question should have specified starting concentrations of the various components (reagents and products) in the solution.
More to the point though, the person who wrote the exam didn't understand why the equilibrium part mattered...
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My chemistry is extremely rusty, but I thought that even if the reaction was at equilibrium, there is still a rate of reaction--it's just that the forward and backward reaction rates are the same, so there's no net change.
(anyone with a better knowledge of chemistry please correct me if I'm wrong)
The rate of the reaction would be the net, which is by definition 0 at equilibrium, as you described. So the answer SHOULD have been 0, but to be a question worth putting on a mid-term for biochemistry, the question should have specified starting concentrations of the various components (reagents and products) in the solution.
More to the point though, the person who wrote the exam didn't understand why the equilibrium part mattered...