Remember that most elements are metals, rather than non-metals. The table summarises some differences in their properties.

	Metals	Non-metals
Appearance	Shiny	Dull
State at room temperature	Solid (except mercury, which is a liquid)	About half are solids, about half are gases, and one (bromine) is a liquid
Density	High (they feel heavy for their size)	Low (they feel light for their size)
Strength	Strong	Weak
Malleable or brittle	Malleable (they bend without breaking)	Brittle (they break or shatter when hammered)
Conduction of heat	Good	Poor (they are insulators)
Conduction of electricity	Good	Poor (they are insulators, apart from graphite)
Magnetic material	Only iron, cobalt and nickel	None
Sound when hit	They make a ringing sound (they are sonorous)	They make a dull sound

Telling them apart

Notice that metals and non-metals have opposite properties to each other. It is usually easy to tell metals and non-metals apart, but some tests are more reliable than others

For example using a magnet is not a good test to see if an element is a metal. That's because only three metals are magnetic, not all of them.