Why can two solids look similar but behave completely differently when you heat them or wire them up?
Your clues in bonding are not hidden deep inside the atom , you can often spot them just by checking melting point, boiling point, and whether your substance lets electricity pass. When you compare those properties, you are really seeing how strongly the particles are held together and whether any charged particles can move.
When a substance changes from solid to liquid at one temperature, that temperature is its melting point. When it changes from liquid to gas, you call that its boiling point.
Electrical conductivity tells you whether your material allows electric current to travel through it, which only happens if mobile charged particles are available.
Bonding and structure means both the type of attraction holding particles together and the way those particles are arranged in the substance.
A really useful shortcut is this: if your substance needs loads of energy to melt, the forces inside it are strong. If it melts easily, the attractions between its particles are much weaker. That is why bonding type and properties are so tightly linked.
7 more sections in this topic
Pick this up in your Library: it holds the whole topic, notes, cheatsheet and questions.