Ontario Grade 9 Science Class Practice Exam 2026 – Your Complete Guide to Exam Success!

The electrostatic series is a list that ranks materials according to their ability to gain or lose electrons, which relates specifically to the phenomenon of static electricity. Items at the top of the series tend to lose electrons easily and become positively charged, while items lower down have a greater tendency to gain electrons and become negatively charged. Understanding this hierarchy helps in predicting how different materials will interact with each other when they come into contact and are then separated. For example, if one material is higher in the series than another, it is more likely to donate electrons, which leads to an understanding of which material will be positively charged and which will be negatively charged after contact.

The other options focus on different properties that do not directly relate to electrostatic behavior. Conductivity pertains to how well materials permit electrical flow, atomic numbers relate to the structure of elements rather than their charge properties, and chemical reactivity speaks to the ability of substances to undergo chemical changes, which does not specifically include electron transfer in the context of static electricity. Therefore, the arrangement based on the tendency to gain or lose electrons accurately captures the essence of the electrostatic series.