// FIELD GUIDE 15 — LEVEL L3 (GCSE / NATIONAL 5)

Hand a chemist an unlabelled test tube and they've got a toolkit of quick, telltale tests to figure out what's inside. Match each test to its result below.

// FIG. 01 — FLAME TESTS (CLICK A METAL ION, THEN MATCH ITS FLAME COLOUR)

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// TABLE 01 — GAS TESTS

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// L3 — WHY THESE TESTS WORK

Flame colours come from electrons in the metal ion absorbing the flame's heat, jumping up an energy level, then falling back and releasing that exact energy as a specific colour of light — the same photon-jump idea from electron shells, just triggered by heat instead of electricity.

// REFERENCES & FURTHER READING

Wikipedia — Analytical chemistry ↗ Wikipedia — Flame test ↗ BBC Bitesize — Science (chemistry) ↗

Cross-check against your own exam board's specification (AQA, Edexcel, OCR, SQA).