Could anyone help me with the following two problems?

1) If you react ammonium sulfate with calcium nitrate, what are the products?
Is it SO(NO3)2 + Ca(NH4)2 or CaSO4 + 2(NH4)NO3 How do you know which are going to combine?

I'm confused

First of all, thank you for taking the time to post your question on the Ask Me Help Desk!

Answering a question such as this one requires an understanding of how ionic bonding works and recognizing the ions which make up the compound.

In short, it is important to remember that all compounds need to be electrically neutral which means that you must have BOTH a cation and an anion present in the compound.

Analyzing the two compounds given in the problem you will find that you have two cations -- NH4 + and Ca 2+

You also have two anions -- SO4 2- and NO3 -

Because you must have BOTH a cation AND an anion present in the compound, this rules out the ammonium/calcium combination and the sulfate/nitrate combination since these are two cations and two anions respectively and do not form a neutral compound.

This leaves our final option of ammonium nitrate and calcium sulfate.

I hope that you found this information helpful.