Write a short explanation about the "cheater" way to find the # of valence electrons an element has, and explain what valence electrons have to do with elements bonding?

I don’t know what the "cheater" way is, however you can easily judge how many valence electrons an element has by looking at its group number on the periodic table.

Bonding in chemistry is completely and totally due to electrons. Every element wants 8 electrons in its outer shell in order to be stable. This is what we call the "Octet Rule".