Question

Which one of the following orbitals can hold only two electrons?
(A)$3s$
(B)$2p$
(C)$4d$
(D)$5f$

Answer 1

Hint :To answer this question you should have basic information about the orbitals, how much electron can they accommodate, how many subshells are there, etc. You already know that there are four subshells in atomic chemistry and these are s, p, d, and f. All of them accommodate different numbers of electrons. Complete answer is provided in the below section.

Complete Step By Step Answer:
We know that s orbital can accommodate up to two electrons, p orbital can accommodate six electrons, d orbital can accommodate ten electrons, and f orbital can accommodate fourteen electrons, no matter what the orbit number is given. So your answer is that $3s$ orbital can hold only two electrons.
So, the option (A) is the correct answer.

Note :
Atomic orbitals are nothing but just the mathematical functions which describe the wave nature of electrons and electron pairs in an atom. The orbitals s, p, d, f have completely different shapes from each other like s orbital has a shape like a sphere whereas p orbitals have a shape like a dumbbell. I am talking only about these two orbits that are s and p because these are the most common orbitals used in organic and biological chemistry. Now if we talk more about the p orbital we get that in p orbital four out of five orbitals have cloverleaf shape whereas the fifth d orbital is having the shape like an elongated dumbbell with a doughnut around its middle.