Metal oxides react with water to produce metal hydroxides.

Answer

To solve the question "Metal oxides react with water to produce metal hydroxides," we can break it down into a step-by-step explanation of the chemical reaction involved.

### Step-by-Step Solution:

1. **Identify the Metal Oxide**:
- Let's consider a general metal oxide represented as \( M_2O_X \), where \( M \) is the metal and \( O \) is oxygen.

2. **Dissociation of Metal Oxide**:
- When the metal oxide \( M_2O_X \) is added to water, it dissociates into its constituent ions:
\[ M_2O_X \rightarrow 2M^{+} + O^{2-} \]

3. **Dissociation of Water**:
- Water (\( H_2O \)) also dissociates into its ions:
\[ H_2O \rightarrow H^{+} + OH^{-} \]

4. **Reaction of Ions**:
- The \( O^{2-} \) ion from the metal oxide will react with the \( H^{+} \) ion from water. The reaction can be represented as:
\[ O^{2-} + 2H^{+} \rightarrow 2OH^{-} \]

5. **Formation of Metal Hydroxide**:
- Now, we combine the metal ions \( M^{+} \) with the hydroxide ions \( OH^{-} \) to form the metal hydroxide:
\[ M^{+} + OH^{-} \rightarrow M(OH) \]
- Since there are \( X \) moles of \( OH^{-} \) produced, the final formula for the metal hydroxide will be:
\[ M_2(OH)_X \]

6. **Example**:
- As an example, let's take sodium oxide (\( Na_2O \)). When it reacts with water:
\[ Na_2O + H_2O \rightarrow 2NaOH \]
- Here, sodium hydroxide (\( NaOH \)) is formed.

### Final Statement:
Thus, metal oxides react with water to produce metal hydroxides, which can be represented generally as:
\[ M_2O_X + H_2O \rightarrow M(OH)_X \]