I don’t know what the “cheater” way is, however you can easily judge how many valence electrons an element has by looking at its group number on the periodic table.
Bonding in chemistry is completely and totally due to electrons. Every element wants 8 electrons in its outer shell in order to be stable. This is what we call the “Octet Rule”.
Answer:
1: New atoms are formed as products
Explanation:
matter (atoms) cannot be created or destroyed
unless you are God or Cinderella's fairy Godmother or something
