Question

Property not characteristic of transition metals is/are:

• A. coloured salts
• B. paramagnetic
• C. fixed valency
• D. low density

Answer 1

Answer: (C), (D)

low density

The density of tranistion metals are high due to the 3d electrons being available for metallic bonding.
Transition metals have variable valencies because the energies of 3d orbital and 4s orbitals are similar so electrons are able to bond from the d-shell as well.
Transition metals and many of their compounds show paramagnetic behaviour. This is due to presence of one or more unpaired electrons in d subshell.

Transition metal ions generally possess one or more unpaired electrons. When an electron from a lower energy d orbital is excited to a higher energy ​d-orbital​. Due to this excitation, the compounds shows a color.​