ACS General Chemistry 2 Practice Exam 2026 - Free Practice Questions and Study Guide

Catalysts affect reaction rates, not the balance point. They provide alternate pathways with lower activation energy for both directions of the reaction. Because the same catalyst lowers the barrier for the forward and the reverse steps, both rate constants rise by about the same factor. This speeds up how fast equilibrium is reached, but it does not change the relative energies of reactants and products, so the equilibrium composition stays the same. In other words, the equilibrium constant remains unchanged at a given temperature. If a catalyst somehow increased only one direction, it would shift the position of equilibrium, but that isn’t how catalysts work.