How to understand the concept of moles? I have trouble relating to the mole concept. For example in a question like the following:


  How many moles of $\ce{K}$ are in 1 mole of $\ce{KOH}$?


How is it that in 1&nbsp;mol of $\ce{KOH}$ there is 1&nbsp;mol of $\ce{K}$ and x&nbsp;moles of $\ce{OH}$? How is it that 1&nbsp;mol of $\ce{KOH}$ has 6.02&times;1023 atoms, and then $\ce{K}$ has 6.02&times;1023 atoms as well. In addition, $\ce{OH}$ will have 6.02&times;1023 atoms, but if we add these two it's greater than the original number of atoms in 1&nbsp;mol of $\ce{KOH}$?
I had the same problem as well, until I sketched out the actual molecules.

When you have one mole of $\ce{KOH}$, you have one mole of the collective "molecule".

If you were to break it down into $\ce{K}$ and $\ce{OH}$, you would get 1 mole of $\ce{K}$, and 1 mole of $\ce{OH}$. This is because you need 1 mole of each to make 1 mole of $\ce{KOH}$.

It's kind of like if you have one hundred keyboards, you would get one hundred 'Enter' keys, one hundred 'Up arrow key' and so on...