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Periodic Table — Practice Questions flashcards

6 of 50 questions free to study here · 13 topics · the whole deck is built into Willys

Multiple-choice practice questions, one best answer each, on symbols and atomic numbers of elements 1–36, groups and periods, element families, periodic trends, notable elements and table history.

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Practice deck · part of Periodic table · written against: IUPAC element names through Og (118). Updated 2026-10-10.

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6 questions from the deck as they are. Flip, rate yourself, filter by topic; your progress stays in this browser.

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  1. Which element is the most abundant in the universe?

    A) Oxygen
    B) Carbon
    C) Hydrogen
    D) Helium
    C) Hydrogen

    Hydrogen (H, 1) is the most abundant element in the universe. Oxygen leads in Earth's crust, not the cosmos.
    Period 1
  2. You see the symbol Na on a chemical label. Which element does it stand for?

    A) Sodium
    B) Neon
    C) Nitrogen
    D) Nickel
    A) Sodium

    Na is sodium (atomic number 11), from the Latin natrium. Nitrogen is N, neon is Ne and nickel is Ni.
    Period 3
  3. When sodium reacts with water, what are the products?

    A) Sodium oxide and oxygen gas
    B) Sodium chloride and hydrogen gas
    C) Sodium hydride and oxygen gas
    D) Sodium hydroxide and hydrogen gas
    D) Sodium hydroxide and hydrogen gas

    Sodium hydroxide and hydrogen gas: every alkali metal gives a hydroxide and hydrogen. A chloride would need chlorine, which water does not contain.
    Alkali & Alkaline Earth Metals
  4. Which groups of the periodic table make up the transition metals?

    A) Groups 3 to 8
    B) Groups 1 and 2
    C) Groups 3 to 12
    D) Groups 13 to 18
    C) Groups 3 to 12

    Groups 3 to 12, the d-block in the middle of the table, though group 12 (zinc, cadmium and mercury) is not always counted. Groups 1–2 are the s-block and 13–18 the p-block.
    Transition Metals & f-Block
  5. Which element has the symbol Pb?

    A) Platinum
    B) Plutonium
    C) Phosphorus
    D) Lead
    D) Lead

    Pb is lead (82), from the Latin plumbum, the root of plumbing. Platinum is Pt, plutonium is Pu and phosphorus is P.
    Notable Heavy Elements
  6. Mendeleev ordered elements by atomic weight, yet placed tellurium before the lighter iodine. Why?

    A) To keep iodine with similar elements
    B) Because he ordered by atomic number
    C) To keep the table eight columns wide
    D) Because iodine was then unknown
    A) To keep iodine with similar elements

    To keep iodine with the chemically similar halogens. Ordering by atomic number came only later, after Moseley's work in 1913.
    History

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Elements 1–36Groups, Trends & Notable Elements

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About these cards

Review status: Second-reader reviewed, with corrections applied.

Checked against:

  • Checked against the IUPAC Periodic Table of the Elements (iupac.org) and the Royal Society of Chemistry periodic table (rsc.org); etymologies checked against Encyclopaedia Britannica.
  • OpenStax Chemistry 2e, consulted as a reference; no text copied.
  • Also checked against the CIAAW standard atomic weights (2024), the NIST Atomic Spectra Database, PubChem's periodic-table data, the IUPAC Nomenclature of Inorganic Chemistry (2005), the Los Alamos National Laboratory periodic table, NASA's Earth Fact Sheet, Mendeleev's 1869 table (Carmen Giunta's translation), Moseley's 1913 paper in the Philosophical Magazine, the University of British Columbia's page on Neil Bartlett and Peter van der Krogt's Elementymology (reference only; no text copied).
  • Original questions written for this deck; no official, textbook or question-bank items were copied.

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