Balancing reactions

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1

<p>I'm having a hard time balancing reactions, and Barron's explanations don't make a lot of sense to me, so someone please help me! As an example, I need to balance this:</p>

<p>Zn + HNO3 ---> Zn(NO3)2 + NH4NO3 + H2O</p>

<p>Initially, I know that a 3 is supposed to go infront of HNO3, but after that, I'm stuck because of the extra O's, H's, and N's on the product side of the equation. Can someone please explain to me how to balance this without having to do a bunch of complicated things?</p>

2

<p>Start by writing this down on a piece of paper, and the rest is simple:</p>

<p>1 Zn 1
1 H 6
1 N 2
3 O 10</p>

3

<p>I guess I’m a little slow… I don’t see what I have to do now</p>

4

<p>The elements on the left have to equal the ones on the right.</p>