In this section we will look at the classification of materials from the perspective of what needs to be seen and done to determine the appropriate classification. We will talk about a variety of different types of materials. There are a variety of ways of making those classifications and of representing those classifications. You may already be familiar with mixtures, solutions, pure substances, compounds, and elements and be able to distinguish between them by considering their physical properties. If so, you may want to skip ahead to the quick quiz for this topic and verify that you already know what will be covered in this section. The pages in this section take you step-by-step through a procedure to classify materials into the categories listed above.