How could I know an element's group without looking at the periodic table?

Question

Is there any technique, formula or something?

Answer 1

Memorize them?  

Below is a link to my favorite online periodic table of the elements by the people at Los Alamos National Laboratory.  Click around that for a few hours and it will make more sense.

Answer 2

Wow a hard qustion i will definitely mark this qustion as interesting

Answer 3

You could use the outer-electron orbitals.  Group 1 has one e- in the 'S' shell, group 3A has 1 e- in the 'P' shell, group 3B has 2 e- in the 'p' shell, group 3B 1 e- in the 'd' shell, etc.

Exception for Helium which has 2 's' shell electons, but is in the 8A group rather than the 1B group.