Test your skills: Selectors

The aim of this skill test is to assess whether you understand CSS selectors.

Note: You can try out solutions in the interactive editors below. However, it may be helpful to download the code and use an online tool such as CodePen, jsFiddle, or Glitch to work on the tasks.

If you get stuck, then ask us for help — see the Assessment or further help section at the bottom of this page.

Task 1

In this task, use CSS to do the following things, without changing the HTML:

  • Make <h1> headings blue.
  • Give <h2> headings a blue background and white text.
  • Cause text wrapped in a <span> to have a font-size of 200%.

Your final result should look like the image below:

Text with the CSS applied for the solution to task 1.

Try updating the live code below to recreate the finished example:

Download the starting point for this task to work in your own editor or in an online editor.

Task 2

In this task, we want you to make the following changes to the look of the content in this example, without changing the HTML:

  • Give the element with an id of special a yellow background.
  • Give the element with a class of alert a 1px grey border.
  • If the element with a class of alert also has a class of stop, make the background red.
  • If the element with a class of alert also has a class of go, make the background green.

Your final result should look like the image below:

Text with the CSS applied for the solution to task 2.

Try updating the live code below to recreate the finished example:

Download the starting point for this task to work in your own editor or in an online editor.

Task 3

In this task, we want you to make the following changes without adding to the HTML:

  • Style links, making the link-state orange, visited links green, and remove the underline on hover.
  • Make the first element inside the container font-size: 150% and the first line of that element red.
  • Stripe every other row in the table by selecting these rows and giving them a background color of #333 and foreground of white.

Your final result should look like the image below:

Text with the CSS applied for the solution to task 3.

Try updating the live code below to recreate the finished example:

Download the starting point for this task to work in your own editor or in an online editor.

Task 4

In this task, we want you to do the following:

  • Make any paragraph that directly follows an <h2> element red.
  • Remove the bullets and add a 1px grey bottom border only to list items that are a direct child of the ul with a class of list.

Your final result should look like the image below:

Text with the CSS applied for the solution to task 4.

Try updating the live code below to recreate the finished example:

Download the starting point for this task to work in your own editor or in an online editor.

Task 5

In this task, add CSS using attribute selectors to do the following:

  • Target the <a> element with a title attribute and make the border pink (border-color: pink).
  • Target the <a> element with an href attribute that contains the word contact somewhere in its value and make the border orange (border-color: orange).
  • Target the <a> element with an href value starting with https and give it a green border (border-color: green).

Your final result should look like the image below:

Four links with different color borders.

Try updating the live code below to recreate the finished example:

Download the starting point for this task to work in your own editor or in an online editor.

Assessment or further help

You can practice these examples in the Interactive Editors above.

If you would like your work assessed or are stuck and want to ask for help:

  1. Put your work into an online shareable editor such as CodePen, jsFiddle, or Glitch. You can write the code yourself or use the starting point files linked to in the above sections.
  2. Write a post asking for assessment and/or help at the MDN Discourse forum Learning category. Your post should include:
    • A descriptive title such as "Assessment wanted for selectors skill test 1".
    • Details of what you have already tried and what you would like us to do; for example, tell us if you're stuck and need help or want an assessment.
    • A link to the example you want assessed or need help with, in an online shareable editor (as mentioned in step 1 above). This is a good practice to get into — it's very hard to help someone with a coding problem if you can't see their code.
    • A link to the actual task or assessment page, so we can find the question you want help with.