Question 1
A staircase line runs from boron (B) to astatine (At) in the periodic table. How does it sort the elements?
The right answer is the one marked above.
Metals to the left of the line, non-metals to the right, and metalloids in the boxes along the staircase itself.
The elements on the line have properties intermediate between metals and non-metals — neither one thing nor the other — which is why they get their own name. Of all the elements identified so far, about 80 per cent are metals.