The Human Body Quiz — 7 Free Questions

Question 1

Which leaf-shaped flap of cartilage at the root of the tongue folds down to cover the entrance of the windpipe every time a person swallows, steering food and drink into the food pipe behind it and keeping them out of the lungs?

Question 2

Which iron-containing protein, related to the one in red blood cells but holding just one oxygen molecule instead of four, sits inside muscle cells as a local oxygen store, giving muscle its red colour, deeper in muscles that work continuously such as the heart and the flight muscles of birds?

Question 3

How many chromosomes does a normal human body cell contain, arranged as 23 matching pairs, with one member of each pair inherited from each parent and the last pair determining sex?

Question 4

Which is the thickest and strongest tendon in the body, a broad cord at the back of the ankle that connects the two large calf muscles to the heel bone and transmits the force that lifts the heel and pushes the body forward in every step and jump?

Question 5

Which of the basic tastes the tongue can detect, alongside sweet, sour, salty and bitter, was named from a Japanese word meaning roughly 'pleasant savoury', identified by a Japanese chemist in 1908, and is triggered by the amino acid glutamate found in meat, aged cheese, tomatoes, mushrooms and seaweed?

Question 6

Which funnel-shaped muscular passage behind the nose and mouth is a shared crossroads for both air and food, channelling air down toward the windpipe and swallowed food back toward the gullet, with the two streams kept apart by a flap and by the reflex closing of the airway during a swallow?

Question 7

Which bitter yellow-green fluid, made continuously by the liver and stored in the gallbladder, breaks large globules of fat into a fine spray of tiny droplets so that digestive enzymes can get at them, and also carries away the liver's waste products, including the brown pigment from worn-out red blood cells that colours the faeces?

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About The Human Body

The human body is the most complex object most people will ever own, and this quiz is a guided tour of about eighty of its parts and workings. Each question describes something, an organ, a bone, a structure, a cell type, a hormone or a process, and asks you to name it from four choices. The explanation then fills in what it does, where it sits, how it can go wrong, and the notable fact or the popular myth attached to it.

It works through the body system by system. The skeleton and its living, constantly rebuilt bone, from the massive thigh bone to the stirrup-shaped speck in the ear. The muscles, and the difference between the striped kind you command and the smooth kind that runs the gut and the blood vessels without asking. The brain and nerves: the little brain that smooths movement, the wandering nerve that calms the heart, the seahorse that files away memories, the gap that every thought crosses. The circulation, the lungs, the long chemical factory of the digestive tract, the kidneys' million filters, the glands that flood the blood with instructions, and the eye, ear, tongue and skin.

A running theme is that the body is a set of trade-offs and jury-rigged solutions, not a perfect machine. The windpipe and the gullet share an opening, so we choke. The appendix and the coccyx are half-retired leftovers. Cartilage and tendons heal badly because, to stay strong and smooth, they gave up a blood supply. The same nerve wiring that makes a heart attack hurt in the arm makes a diaphragm problem hurt in the shoulder.

Another is that the body is never finished. Bone is torn down and rebuilt so thoroughly that the skeleton is effectively new every decade. The lining of the gut is replaced in days, the outer skin in weeks, red blood cells in months. Muscles thicken to meet a load and waste away without one. Even the connections between brain cells are rewired by everything you learn. The organ you have is a snapshot of a process, not a fixed part.

The quiz also clears up the confusions people carry: that the ureter and the urethra are different tubes, that arteries do not always carry oxygen-rich blood, that the tongue has no taste 'map', that lactic acid is not simply a poison, that a knee-jerk never reaches the brain. Where a diagram of a region or a system helps without labelling the answer, it is shown; otherwise the question stands on its description alone. Every claim has been checked against reliable sources, and the wording is kept plain.