Answer: The given statement is False.
Explanation:
Electronegativity is defined as the tendency of an element to attract a shared pair of electron towards itself.
Electronegativity increases across a period as the atomic number of the elements increases. This happens because the size of an atom decreases on moving across the period. This is so, the electrons get added to the same shell and the nuclear charge keeps on increasing. So, the electrons get more tightly held by the nucleus.
As, the size of an element decreases, the valence electrons come closer to the nucleus or the attraction of the valence electrons increases to the nucleus.
Electronegativity decreases down the group because the size of an atom increases as we move down the group as new shell is added and electron gets added up in the new shell. As, the size of an element increases, the valence electrons gets far away from the nucleus. So, the attraction between the nucleus and the shared pair of electrons decreases.
As we know, atomic number increases across a period and also on moving down the group.
So, the trend of electronegativity is not continuous because on moving down the group, it decreases and on moving across a period, it increases.
Hence, the given statement is False
