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The electronic configuration for the oxygen atom is [math]1s^2 2s^2 2p^4[/math]. It must acquire 2 electrons to become an ion with a charge of -2 . Thus the electronic configuration for an [math]O^{2 -}[/math] ion is
This means that the neutral oxygen atom has 8 electrons. Here's a very, very cool picture of a model representing the oxygen atom As you can see, oxygen has 2 of its 8 electrons in the shell closest to the nucleus, and the remaining 6 electrons - which are called valence electrons - in its second shell - this is oxygen's outermost shell.