Periodic Table
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148 free Periodic Table trivia questions with answers — science & nature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
50 free Periodic Table trivia questions with answers. Are you a chemistry expert or just curious about the elements that make up our world? Our Periodic Table trivia quiz will test your knowledge of elements, their properties, and their placement on the periodic table. Whether you're studying for a chemistry class or just want to have fun learning, this quiz is the perfect way to challenge yourself!
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Q 01Who is widely credited with publishing the first recognizable periodic table?
Dmitri Mendeleev
Dmitri Mendeleev, a Russian chemist, published the first generally accepted periodic table in 1869. He arranged elements by atomic mass and predicted the properties of undiscovered elements.
Q 02Which yellow element is the 'brimstone' of the Bible's fire and brimstone?
Sulfur
Sulfur is the Bible's brimstone, a word meaning 'burning stone': set alight, the yellow solid melts into a blood-red liquid and burns with a blue flame.
Q 03What do elements in the same horizontal row of the periodic table share?
Number of electron shells
Number of electron shells: each new row starts when a fresh, higher shell takes its first electron, so everything from sodium to argon has exactly three shells.
Q 04Which of these elements has the highest electronegativity?
Fluorine
Fluorine pulls shared electrons harder than any other element, 3.98 on the Pauling scale, which makes it so reactive that several chemists were injured or killed trying to isolate it.
Q 05Which category of elements are generally shiny, malleable, and good conductors of heat and electricity?
Metals
Metals owe these traits to a 'sea' of loosely held outer electrons that drifts between the atoms, carrying heat and current, reflecting light and letting layers slide instead of snapping.
Q 06What is the chemical symbol for gold?
Au
The chemical symbol for gold is Au, derived from its Latin name 'aurum'. Gold is a precious metal known for its distinctive yellow color and resistance to corrosion.
Q 07What element is a liquid at room temperature and used in thermometers?
Mercury
Mercury (Hg) is the only metallic element that is liquid at standard temperature and pressure, making it useful in devices like thermometers. Its symbol Hg comes from 'hydrargyrum', meaning 'water-silver'.
Q 08Which element is the lightest noble gas?
Helium
Helium is so light that Earth's gravity cannot hold it: once released into the air it drifts upward and leaks away into space, which is why the helium in a party balloon is gone for good.
Q 09Where in the periodic table do the alkali metals sit?
Group 1
Group 1 also holds hydrogen, which shares the column but is not an alkali metal; the real members get more violent with water the further down you go.
Q 10Transition metals occupy which region of the periodic table?
d-block
d-block is the table's central slab, ten columns wide because a d subshell holds ten electrons; partly filled d subshells let these metals shift oxidation state and form vividly coloured compounds.
Q 11Moving left to right across a row of the periodic table, what generally happens to atomic radius?
Decreases
Decreases: each step along a row strengthens the positive charge of the nucleus, which draws the electrons in tighter, so atoms shrink even as they get heavier.
Q 12Who proposed the law of octaves, an early attempt to classify elements?
John Newlands
John Newlands noticed that every eighth element resembled the first, like notes an octave apart; the idea was controversial at first and only later recognised as an important step toward the periodic law.
Q 13What is the primary role of valence electrons?
Participate in chemical bonding
Q 21What is the chemical symbol for sodium?
Na
Na stands for natrium, the Latin name drawn from natron, the Egyptian mineral salt; Berzelius introduced the symbol in his 1814 system of one- and two-letter chemical abbreviations.
Q 22Which element is added to table salt in tiny amounts to prevent goitre?
Iodine
Iodine is added to table salt because the thyroid needs it to make its hormones; without enough, the gland swells into a goitre, and a shortage before birth can permanently harm a child's developing brain.
Q 23Gallium, found in 1875, had been forecast four years earlier under what placeholder name?
Eka-aluminium
Eka-aluminium marked the empty box one place below aluminium in the 1871 table; when gallium turned up in a zinc ore, its density and its oxide matched the forecast closely.
They participate in chemical bonding, which is why elements in the same column behave alike: they carry the same number of outer electrons. Mass and stability are the nucleus's business.
Q 14Which element has the symbol Fe?
Iron
The chemical symbol Fe represents Iron, which comes from its Latin name 'ferrum'. Iron is a common metal essential for both industry and biology.
Q 15What is the most abundant element in the Earth's crust by mass?
Oxygen
Oxygen makes up nearly half the crust by mass, not as a gas but locked into rock: almost every common mineral, from quartz to clay, is a compound of oxygen with silicon or metals.
Q 16Which noble gas glows orange-red when electricity passes through it in advertising signs?
Neon
Neon gives the classic orange-red glow; Georges Claude demonstrated the first neon lamps at the Paris Motor Show in December 1910, while signs filled with argon or mercury vapour glow blue instead.
Q 17Which element forms the backbone of every organic molecule, thanks to its knack for bonding stably with itself in long chains?
Carbon
Carbon can bond to four neighbours at once, including other carbons, which is why it builds the chains and rings behind millions of known compounds, from methane to DNA.
Q 18Which gemstone is a crystal of pure carbon, the same element as the graphite in pencils?
Diamond
Diamond and graphite are both pure carbon; only the bonding differs: each atom in diamond grips four neighbours in a rigid lattice, while graphite's flat sheets slide apart easily enough to write with.
Q 19What is the name of the horizontal rows in the periodic table?
Periods
Periods are the rows, and they show the table's key idea: read the elements in order and similar properties keep recurring, so each row ends where the pattern starts over.
Q 20Which element is a metalloid often used in semiconductors?
Silicon
Silicon conducts poorly when pure but can be tuned by adding traces of other elements, which lets chips switch current on and off; California's Silicon Valley is nicknamed after it.
Q 24Which metal has the highest melting point, at 3,422 °C?
Tungsten
Tungsten melts at 3,422 °C, the highest of any metal, which is why it was drawn into the white-hot filaments of incandescent light bulbs for most of the twentieth century.
Q 25Which element is crucial for bone health and found in dairy products?
Calcium
Calcium phosphate is the mineral that makes bone hard: about 99% of the body's calcium, roughly a kilogram in an adult, is locked in the skeleton and teeth.
Q 26What is the common name for the elements in Group 17?
Halogens
Group 17 elements are the halogens — fluorine, chlorine, bromine, iodine, and astatine — named from the Greek for 'salt-former' because they combine with metals to make salts such as sodium chloride.
Q 27Which element's symbol Sn comes from the Latin word stannum?
Tin
Tin, atomic number 50, takes its symbol Sn from the Latin stannum; the metal coats steel food cans and, alloyed with copper, gave the Bronze Age its name.
Q 28Which element makes up about three-quarters of the universe's normal matter by mass?
Hydrogen
Hydrogen makes up roughly 75% of ordinary matter by mass and helium nearly all the rest, both left over from the Big Bang; heavier elements, forged later in stars, add only about 2%.
Q 29What element is used in old photographic film?
Silver
Silver halides, particularly silver bromide, were the light-sensitive compounds used in traditional photographic film and paper to capture images.
Q 30Which of these is a rare earth element?
Cerium
Cerium is not rare at all: it is about as plentiful in the crust as copper or zinc and more so than tin or lead. The other three options are radioactive actinides.