CHEMISTRY COMMUNITY

I'm confused about how 7b (Nitrogen) is in an excited state. I said that it was in the ground state since it has the electrons in the correct orbitals, but the answer key says otherwise.

Hello, this is because the spin in the second box of the 2p orbital is pointed down. When the electrons are unpaired, they are always facing up (positive spin).

Oh I completely missed that the second spin in 2p was pointed down. Thank you!