HTML and CSS Certification Practice Test

A CSS selector serves the purpose of applying styles to specific elements within an HTML document based on defined criteria. By using selectors, developers can target particular elements, such as tags, classes, or IDs, and apply various style rules to them. This capability means that you can change the visual presentation of content without altering the structure of the HTML itself.

For instance, if you have multiple headings on a page and you want to make only the heading with a specific class a different color, you would use a class selector to achieve this. The selector acts as a way to specify which elements should receive particular styles, thereby allowing for precise control over the appearance of web pages.

The other options describe functions that are not the role of a CSS selector: defining document structure pertains to HTML, creating hyperlinks relates to anchor tags in HTML, and organizing elements may involve CSS properties but does not directly relate to the function of a selector alone.