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The reactivity continuum (RC) model is a powerful statistical approach for describing the apparent kinetics of bulk organic matter (OM) decomposition. Here, we used ultrahigh resolution mass spectrometry data to evaluate the main premise of the RC model, namely that there is a continuous spectrum of reactivity within bulk OM, where each individual reactive type undergoes exponential decay. We performed a 120 day OM decomposition experiment on lake water, with an untreated control and a treatment preexposed to UV light, and described the loss of bulk dissolved organic carbon with RC modeling. The behavior of individual molecular formulas was described by fitting the single exponential model to the change in peak intensities over time. The range of the empirically derived apparent exponential decay coefficients (k