I’m giving my chemistry students weekly element quizzes until they have the symbols and names of the first 36 elements memorized. I broke the first 36 elements down into three sets. Each week, my chemistry students have 12 elements and their symbols to memorize from the periodic table.

When I told my husband of my plan to write my element quizzes, he offered to help create an Excel Spreadsheet that would automatically generate random element quizzes. Of course, I took him up on his offer to create an element quiz generator!
Here’s the finished product:
Change the version letter, and the spreadsheet will automatically generate a new quiz. Not happy with the new quiz version? Hit F9 to generate a different version.
This part of the spreadsheet controls the magic.
Type in the atomic numbers that you want to quiz students through. Choose a quiz number and version letter. The spreadsheet does the rest.
For my class, we are doing four quizzes.
- Quiz 1 – Elements 1-12
- Quiz 2 – Elements 13-24
- Quiz 3 – Elements 25-36
- Quiz 4 – Elements 1-36
The spreadsheet made it super easy to generate all of these quizzes (including FOUR versions of each) in a matter of minutes. I simply hit F9 until I got a quiz version I wanted, then I selected “Microsoft Print to PDF” as my printer.
Each PDF contains a quiz and the corresponding answer key!
Here’s what the finished element quiz looks like:
And, here’s the corresponding answer key.
Please check out my other chemistry resources for more free downloads.
Free Download of Element Quiz Generator and Element Quizzes
Element Quiz Generator (EXCEL) (457 downloads)
First 36 Elements Study Guide (PDF) (380 downloads)
First 36 Elements Study Guide (Editable Publisher File ZIP) (372 downloads)
Element Quizzes – ALL (ZIP) (366 downloads)
Element Quiz 1A (PDF) (323 downloads)
Element Quiz 1B (PDF) (306 downloads)
Element Quiz 1C (PDF) (291 downloads)
Element Quiz 1D (PDF) (300 downloads)
Element Quiz 2A (PDF) (289 downloads)
Element Quiz 2B (PDF) (268 downloads)
Element Quiz 2C (PDF) (309 downloads)
Element Quiz 2D (PDF) (288 downloads)
Element Quiz 3A (PDF) (264 downloads)
Element Quiz 3B (PDF) (259 downloads)
Element Quiz 3C (PDF) (268 downloads)
Element Quiz 3D (PDF) (276 downloads)
Element Quiz 4A (PDF) (281 downloads)
Element Quiz 4B (PDF) (276 downloads)
More Resources for Teaching the Periodic Table
- Periodic Table Activities Collection
- How the Periodic Table Really Looks Activity
- Odd One Out Chemistry Activity
- How to Read the Periodic Table Poster
- Element Quiz Generator
- Element Bingo Activity
- How Many Elements Can You Name Quiz
- Periodic Table of Mistakes Dry Erase Activity
- Chemistry Gossip Activity
- Periodic Table License Plate Project
- Chemical Symbol Foldable
- How to Read the Periodic Table Foldable
- Periodic Table War
- Sweet 16 Periodic Table Tournament
- Periodic Table of the Elements Project
Lin W
Friday 13th of October 2017
Wow this is great and available even before I need it. Thank you for sharing yours and your husband's resources!!! So very appreciated!!! I see the excel template has other information so will you use it for other things in future like electron configurations, atomic mass etc?