Element families quiz: which family is each element in?
Practice sorting elements into their families, such as the alkali metals, halogens, noble gases, transition metals and metalloids. An element’s family tells you a lot about how it behaves, so this is one of the fastest ways to make the periodic table useful.
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How it works
Each round has 10 questions: you see an element and pick its family from four options. Every answer gets instant feedback, and your best score is saved in your browser. Choose the first 20, the first 36 or all 118 elements before you start.
Play it three ways: a classic round of 10 questions, a 60-second speed round (25 right answers earns a star), or survival, where you keep going until you miss three.
Tips
- Learn the named columns first: group 1 is the alkali metals (except hydrogen), group 2 the alkaline earth metals, group 17 the halogens and group 18 the noble gases.
- Groups 3 to 12 are the transition metals, while aluminum, gallium, indium, tin, thallium, lead, bismuth and polonium are post-transition metals.
- The metalloids sit along the staircase line: boron, silicon, germanium, arsenic, antimony and tellurium.
- Hydrogen sits in group 1 but is a nonmetal, elements 57–71 are lanthanides and elements 89–103 are actinides.