Question

A molecule has four unshared electrons on the central atom and four chlorine atoms bonded to the central atom. What is its molecular shape and its hybridization?

Answer 1

Hybridization is the chemist's attempt to explain the observed molecular shape by constructing HAOs with the appropriate inter orbital angels. A molecule adopts its most stable shape all by itself ,then the chemist calculated what HAOs correspond to the shape.There is a One-to One correspondence between shape and hybridization.