Biology · Science General

Diversity in Living Organisms

3,829 Questions

The diversity in living organisms deals with the classification of life forms into various kingdoms and phyla. This topic covers specific traits of bacteria, animal body cavities, and structural adaptations for survival. These fundamentals are crucial for biology sections in medical entrance and state board exams.

Animal phyla characteristicsBacteria and flagellaBiological adaptationsKingdom Animalia classificationBody cavity typesExtinct organism subphylaJawless animals identification

Diversity in Living Organisms Questions

Multiple choice

Which of the following organisms represents the phylum whose members lack mouth and anus?

  1. Spongilla

  2. Hydra

  3. Planaria

  4. Ascaris
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
A Correct answer
Explanation

Spongilla belongs to the group porifera. They are commonly known as sponges. The word ‘porifera’ means organisms with holes. These are non-motile animals attached to some solid support under water. They have holes or ‘pores’ all over the body. These lead to a canal system, which helps in circulating water throughout the body to bring in food and oxygen. The members of this phylum lack mouth and anus. 

Multiple choice

Which of the following is not a feature of vertebrates?

  1. Presence of notochord.

  2. Presence of gill slits or lungs for respiration.

  3. Presence of water vascular system.

  4. Presence of bilaterally symmetrical body.
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
C Correct answer
Explanation

  Presence of water vascular system is not a feature of vertebrates.

Multiple choice

In which of the following phyla is notochord present?

  1. Mollusca

  2. Vertebrata

  3. Annelida

  4. Platyhelminthes
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
B Correct answer
Explanation

A flexible rod-like structure that is present in the embryos of all chordates and in the adult forms of certain groups, such as the lancelets and hagfishes. The notochord develops into the spinal column in most vertebrates.

Multiple choice

Agar-agar is obtained from

  1. gelidium

  2. volvox

  3. chara

  4. spirulina
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
A Correct answer
Explanation

Agar-agar is a gelatinous substance obtained from the cell walls of certain species of red algae, specifically from the genus Gelidium.

Multiple choice

How do poisonous snakes sometimes make their consumption easier?

Directions: Read the passage carefully and answer the question that follows.

All snakes are hunters and predators, feeding on the animals and sometimes their eggs. Having no limbs, snakes cannot hold their preys down to bite; hence, they usually swallow them whole. Poisonous snakes sometimes do immobilise their preys with their venom to make consumption easier. It is truly a myth that poisonous snakes attack humans for food. Humans can never be their targets for food as we are normally too big for them to swallow. In cases where snakes do bite, these attacks are usually defensive ones and the venom injected is normally little or sometimes even none. The full fatal dose of the venom is only released on smaller animals which the snakes can swallow easily. Besides helping in the killing and immobilising of their preys, the poison also acts as digestive agents for snakes.

  1. They use venom to digest their preys.

  2. They inactivate their preys with their venom.

  3. They attack large animals for this purpose.

  4. They make small animals as their preys for this motive.
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
B Correct answer
Explanation

This is given in the passage, '...immobilise their preys with their venom to make consumption easier'.

Multiple choice

Which of the following statements is not true about snakes?

Directions: Read the passage carefully and answer the question that follows.

All snakes are hunters and predators, feeding on the animals and sometimes their eggs. Having no limbs, snakes cannot hold their preys down to bite; hence, they usually swallow them whole. Poisonous snakes sometimes do immobilise their preys with their venom to make consumption easier. It is truly a myth that poisonous snakes attack humans for food. Humans can never be their targets for food as we are normally too big for them to swallow. In cases where snakes do bite, these attacks are usually defensive ones and the venom injected is normally little or sometimes even none. The full fatal dose of the venom is only released on smaller animals which the snakes can swallow easily. Besides helping in the killing and immobilising of their preys, the poison also acts as digestive agents for snakes.

  1. Some of the snakes have limbs.

  2. Snakes bite humans for self-defence.

  3. Snakes are hunters.

  4. Snakes feed on both animals and their eggs.
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
A Correct answer
Explanation

It is not true because all snakes are devoid of limbs. The passage says, 'Having no limbs, snakes cannot hold their preys...'.

Multiple choice

'Limb' implies

Directions: Read the passage carefully and answer the question that follows.

All snakes are hunters and predators, feeding on the animals and sometimes their eggs. Having no limbs, snakes cannot hold their preys down to bite; hence, they usually swallow them whole. Poisonous snakes sometimes do immobilise their preys with their venom to make consumption easier. It is truly a myth that poisonous snakes attack humans for food. Humans can never be their targets for food as we are normally too big for them to swallow. In cases where snakes do bite, these attacks are usually defensive ones and the venom injected is normally little or sometimes even none. The full fatal dose of the venom is only released on smaller animals which the snakes can swallow easily. Besides helping in the killing and immobilising of their preys, the poison also acts as digestive agents for snakes.

  1. an arm or leg of a person or an animal

  2. an arm or leg of a child

  3. an arm or leg of a human being

  4. venom of a snake
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
A Correct answer
Explanation

It is true as the jointed appendages of an animal or a person have been given a scientific name 'limbs'.

Multiple choice

Snakes swallow their prey whole because

Directions: Read the passage carefully and answer the question that follows.

All snakes are hunters and predators, feeding on the animals and sometimes their eggs. Having no limbs, snakes cannot hold their preys down to bite; hence, they usually swallow them whole. Poisonous snakes sometimes do immobilise their preys with their venom to make consumption easier. It is truly a myth that poisonous snakes attack humans for food. Humans can never be their targets for food as we are normally too big for them to swallow. In cases where snakes do bite, these attacks are usually defensive ones and the venom injected is normally little or sometimes even none. The full fatal dose of the venom is only released on smaller animals which the snakes can swallow easily. Besides helping in the killing and immobilising of their preys, the poison also acts as digestive agents for snakes.

  1. they like it

  2. they have no limbs to grip their prey

  3. it facilitates their consumption

  4. they are lethargic
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
B Correct answer
Explanation

The second line of the passage clearly mentions that snakes are devoid of limbs to hold their preys down to bite. Hence, they usually swallow them.

Multiple choice

Humans can never be snakes’ target for their food because

Directions: Read the passage carefully and answer the question that follows.

All snakes are hunters and predators, feeding on the animals and sometimes their eggs. Having no limbs, snakes cannot hold their preys down to bite; hence, they usually swallow them whole. Poisonous snakes sometimes do immobilise their preys with their venom to make consumption easier. It is truly a myth that poisonous snakes attack humans for food. Humans can never be their targets for food as we are normally too big for them to swallow. In cases where snakes do bite, these attacks are usually defensive ones and the venom injected is normally little or sometimes even none. The full fatal dose of the venom is only released on smaller animals which the snakes can swallow easily. Besides helping in the killing and immobilising of their preys, the poison also acts as digestive agents for snakes.

  1. snakes are afraid of humans

  2. humans are too big in size to be poisoned by a small amount of venom

  3. snakes dislike the taste of humans

  4. snakes cannot swallow them whole
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
D Correct answer
Explanation

It is clearly mentioned in the passage that humans are too large for snakes to gulp down and that is why they can never make humans their prey to satiate their hunger.

Multiple choice

Directions: The last sentence in the following passage has been deleted. Select the sentence, out of the available options, that best suits the end of the passage

Elephants have joined a small, elite group of species, including humans, great apes and dolphins that have the ability to recognize themselves in the mirror, according to a new finding by researchers at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center, Emory University, and the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) in New York. This newly found presence of mirror self-recognition in elephants, previously predicted due to their well-known social complexity, is thought to relate to empathetic tendencies and the ability to distinguish oneself from others, a characteristic that evolved independently in several branches of animals, including primates such as humans.

  1. The homo sapiens lose yet another of their perceived superior virtues to the animal kingdom.

  2. A whole series of revelations, like this, will serve to further reduce the perceived differences between the humans and the rest of the animal kingdom.

  3. This only serves to support the point that it is not the animals that suffer from the lack of certain “human” characteristics; it is the humans who lack appreciation of some such characteristics within the animals.

  4. The study is the latest in a series of revelations about the cognitive skills of living beings, other than humans.
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
D Correct answer
Explanation

Option (4) seems to sum up the theme of the passage and elaborate the idea towards the end of the paragraph.

Multiple choice

Dolphins can probably ____________ with each other.

Directions: Read the given passage carefully.

Dolphins live in saltwater but they can also live in freshwater locations. Only a handful of the species though are known to thrive in freshwater regions. They tend to stick to the shallow areas of the water found along the continental shelves.
Dolphins are regarded as the friendliest creatures in the sea and stories of them helping drowning sailors have been common since Roman times. The more we learn about dolphins, the more we realise that their society is more complex than people previously imagined. They look after other dolphins when they are ill, care for pregnant mothers and protect the weakest in the community, as we do. Some scientists have suggested that dolphins have a language but it is much more probable that they communicate with each other without needing words. Could any of these mammals be more intelligent than man? Certainly the most common argument in favour of man's superiority over them that we can kill them more easily than they can kill us is the least satisfactory. On the contrary, the more we discover about these remarkable creatures, the less we appear superior when we destroy them.

 

  1. communicate

  2. fight

  3. love

  4. play
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
A Correct answer
Explanation

It is given that “it is much more probable that they communicate with each other” suggests the answer.

Multiple choice

The dolphins can live in

Directions: Read the given passage carefully.

Dolphins live in saltwater but they can also live in freshwater locations. Only a handful of the species though are known to thrive in freshwater regions. They tend to stick to the shallow areas of the water found along the continental shelves.
Dolphins are regarded as the friendliest creatures in the sea and stories of them helping drowning sailors have been common since Roman times. The more we learn about dolphins, the more we realise that their society is more complex than people previously imagined. They look after other dolphins when they are ill, care for pregnant mothers and protect the weakest in the community, as we do. Some scientists have suggested that dolphins have a language but it is much more probable that they communicate with each other without needing words. Could any of these mammals be more intelligent than man? Certainly the most common argument in favour of man's superiority over them that we can kill them more easily than they can kill us is the least satisfactory. On the contrary, the more we discover about these remarkable creatures, the less we appear superior when we destroy them.

 

  1. saltwater

  2. freshwater

  3. Both (1) and (2)

  4. None of these
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
C Correct answer
Explanation

“Dolphins live in saltwater, but they can also live in freshwater locations” suggests the answer.

Multiple choice

Dolphins have a __________ like the humans.

Directions: Read the given passage carefully.

Dolphins live in saltwater but they can also live in freshwater locations. Only a handful of the species though are known to thrive in freshwater regions. They tend to stick to the shallow areas of the water found along the continental shelves.
Dolphins are regarded as the friendliest creatures in the sea and stories of them helping drowning sailors have been common since Roman times. The more we learn about dolphins, the more we realise that their society is more complex than people previously imagined. They look after other dolphins when they are ill, care for pregnant mothers and protect the weakest in the community, as we do. Some scientists have suggested that dolphins have a language but it is much more probable that they communicate with each other without needing words. Could any of these mammals be more intelligent than man? Certainly the most common argument in favour of man's superiority over them that we can kill them more easily than they can kill us is the least satisfactory. On the contrary, the more we discover about these remarkable creatures, the less we appear superior when we destroy them.

 

  1. brain

  2. society

  3. sleep

  4. language
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
B Correct answer
Explanation

“They look after other dolphins when they are ill, care for pregnant mothers and protect the weakest in the community, as we do” suggests the answer.

Multiple choice

The meaning of the word thrive is

Directions: Read the given passage carefully.

Dolphins live in saltwater but they can also live in freshwater locations. Only a handful of the species though are known to thrive in freshwater regions. They tend to stick to the shallow areas of the water found along the continental shelves.
Dolphins are regarded as the friendliest creatures in the sea and stories of them helping drowning sailors have been common since Roman times. The more we learn about dolphins, the more we realise that their society is more complex than people previously imagined. They look after other dolphins when they are ill, care for pregnant mothers and protect the weakest in the community, as we do. Some scientists have suggested that dolphins have a language but it is much more probable that they communicate with each other without needing words. Could any of these mammals be more intelligent than man? Certainly the most common argument in favour of man's superiority over them that we can kill them more easily than they can kill us is the least satisfactory. On the contrary, the more we discover about these remarkable creatures, the less we appear superior when we destroy them.

 

  1. to grow

  2. to lessen

  3. to create

  4. to destroy
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
A Correct answer
Explanation

It means to grow or survive, i.e. the dolphins generally live in saltwater, but some do survive and grow in freshwater.