Actual yield is

• A. The theoretical yield
• B. The predicted yield from a calculation
• C. The amount of product obtained from an experiment
• D. The mass of unreacted reactants

Answer: (C)

Actual yield is the amount of product you actually obtain from a reaction run in the lab. Theoretical yield is the maximum amount that could be formed from the given reactants, calculated by stoichiometry assuming the reaction goes to completion with no losses. A predicted yield from a calculation usually refers to that theoretical amount, not what you recover in reality. Leftover reactants represent what you didn’t convert into product, not the yield itself. In real experiments, the actual yield is often lower than the theoretical yield due to incomplete reactions, side reactions, and losses during purification or transfer. To assess efficiency, you compare actual yield to theoretical yield using percent yield = (actual yield / theoretical yield) × 100%.