Answer:
B) The term "inert" was dropped because it no longer described all the group 8A elements.
Explanation:
Inert elements in chemistry simply refers to elements that are chemically inactive and are not expected to form any compounds. this is the general belief for the group 8 elements as they all have complete duplet/octet configurations (and ideally, they ought to be very stable with no tendency to form compounds by participating in the loss and gain of electrons). However the discovery of compounds like xenon tetrafluoride (XeF4) proved this to be wrong.
Again, the reason the term - inert gses was droppedis beacause this term is not strictly accurate because several of them do take part in chemical reactions.
After dropping the term - Inert gases, they are now referred to as noble gases.
The main points of Dalton's atomic theory, as it eventually developed, are: Elements are made of extremely small particles called atoms. Atoms of a given element are identical in size, mass and other properties; atoms of different elements differ in size, mass and other properties.
