Which statement accurately describes the chemical symbol of an element?

Question

The chemical symbol is always a single letter.
The chemical symbol always starts with the same letter as the name of the element.
The chemical symbol always begins with a capital letter.
The chemical symbol can be shared by more than one element.

Answer 1

The statement that accurately describes the chemical symbol of an element is:

The chemical symbol always begins with a capital letter.

While many chemical symbols consist of one letter (like H for hydrogen), others consist of two letters (like He for helium), and the first letter is always capitalized while the second (if present) is lowercase. The chemical symbol does not have to start with the same letter as the element's name (for example, the symbol for gold is Au), and a chemical symbol cannot be shared by more than one element, as each element has a unique symbol.