At room temperature, a certain element is found to be a soft, silver-colored solid that reacts violently with water and is a good conductor of electricity. Is the element likely to be a metal, a nonmetal, or a semimetal?

Video transcript

Hi everyone. This problem reads an element at room temperature was found to be a gold colored solid. Malleable and a good conductor of heat and electricity. Which statement is true regarding the element a The element is a metal, be the element is a non metal or see the element is a semi metal. Okay, so let's go ahead and break these down into their categories. Alright, so we have semi metal. We have metal and non metal. So let's just go ahead and describe some characteristics for these three. Okay, so for the first one, semi metals, these are known to be poor conductors of heat and electricity. Okay, and the same is true for non metals. They are poor conductors of heat and electricity. Metals on the other hand are good conductors of heat and electricity. Okay, so that's the first thing semi metals are known to be brittle. Okay. And not malleable metals on the other hand are known to be malleable and they have metallic luster. Okay. Semi medals also have metallic luster. Okay, Non metals do not have metallic luster. So looking at our problem, we know we want to know which statement is true and the characteristics that were given is that it is a gold colored solid malleable and a good conductor of heat and electricity so we can go ahead and eliminate are poor conductors of heat and electricity. Semi metal and non metal. So we know that it is a gold colored solid. So it has metallic luster. It's malleable and it's a good conductor of heat and electricity. That means it's going to be a metal. Alright. And out of the answer choices given answer choice A is going to be our correct answer. The element is a metal. Alright, So that is it for this problem. I hope this was helpful.