CHAPTER 7 THE PERIODIC TABLE AND
BONDING
Drill 1
- B Remember that the group 2A elements are alkaline earth metals.
Calcium (Ca) is in this family, so (B) is correct.
- D Metals bond by losing valence electrons, so eliminate A, B, and C.
This leaves us with fluorine and neon.
They’re both nonmetals; however, neon is a noble gas,
so it generally does not form bonds. Fluorine does. (D)
is the answer.
- A The first ionization of an element refers to the amount of energy
needed to remove one electron from an atom. The second ionization energy
refers to the removal of a second electron. What kind of electrons are
hardest to remove from an atom? Inner shell electrons. So the correct
answer should be an element whose atoms have only 1 valence electron.
Why? Because removing a second electron from such an atom would
involve removing an inner shell electron and thus take an enormous amount
of energy. So which of the choices has atoms with 1 valence electron?
Think group 1A elements. Sodium is one of those, and (A) is correct.
- T, T, CE
Time to divide and conquer. Is the first statement true or
false? It’s true. What about statement II? It’s also true.
Inner shell electrons are held more closely to the
positive nucleus than valence electrons; inner shell
electrons are held too strongly to be useful in bonding.
Let’s see if the whole sentence makes sense: “Only an
atom’s valence electrons can participate in bonding
because an atom’s inner shell electrons are held too
tightly to be shared or transferred.” It certainly does, so
