text: explain how the periodic table can act as a guide to write the electron configurations?   the properties of an atom depend ultimately on the number of electrons in the various orbitals, and on the nuclear charge which determines the compactness of the orbitals. in order to relate the properties of the elements to their locations in the periodic table, it is often convenient to make use of a simplified view of the atom in which the nucleus is surrounded by one or more concentric spherical "shells", each of which consists of the highest-principal quantum number orbitals (always s- and p-orbitals) that contain at least one electron. the shell model (as with any scientific model) is less a description of the world than a simplified way of looking at it that helps us to understand and correlate diverse phenomena. the principal simplification here is that it deals only with the main group elements of the s- and p-blocks, omitting the d- and f-block elements whose properties tend to be less closely tied to their group numbers.   in particular, the number of outer-shell electrons (which is given by the rightmost digit in the group number) is a major determinant of an element's "combining power", or valence. the general trend is for an atom to gain or lose electrons, either directly (leading to formation of ions) or by sharing electrons with other atoms so as to achieve an outer-shell configuration of s2p6. this configuration, known as an octet, corresponds to that of one of the noble-gas elements of group 18.