Exam-style questions B1.
1 Cell structures
Name Sianee Nanthakumar Class ..... Date ....................
1 Which of these can be found in animal cells and plant cells, but not in
bacterial cells?
A cell membrane
B cell wall
C chloroplasts
D mitochondria
Your answer C (1 mark)
2 John wants to look at cells from the root of a young plant under the microscope.
John cuts the tip off a root and puts it on a microscope slide.
He adds two drops of iodine solution to stain the cells.
He crushes the root by placing a plastic coverslip on top of it and pushing
down on the coverslip gently with the eraser on his pencil.
Figure 1
a Suggest one reason why John uses a plastic coverslip and not a glass one.
As a safety precaution as glass could possibly constitute a broken glass hazard.
(1 mark)
b Explain why John needs to stain the cells.
Most cells are colourless. Therefore, John needs to stain the cells as this increases
contrast and highlights specific subcellular structures. Overall, adding a stain makes it more
easier to observe the specimen. (2 marks)
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Exam-style questions B1.1 Cell structures
Name Sianee Nanthakumar Class ..... Date ....................
c John identifies the parts of the plant cells.
Describe the function of:
i the cytoplasm
The cytoplasm is a jelly-like substance where most of the cell’s chemical reactions
occur. The cytoplasm also contains subcellular structures. The cytoplasm also contains
enzymes which catalyse these reactions. (1 mark)
ii the large vacuole
The permanent vacuole is full of cell sap (dissolved watery solution of salts and
sugars) which keeps the plant cell turgid and keeps the overall plant upright. (1 mark)
iii the nucleus.
The nucleus contains genetic material (DNA) in the form of chromosomes and it
controls the activities of the cell
(1 mark)
d John knows that if he used an electron microscope he would get a higher
resolution image of the cells.
Explain what is meant by higher resolution.
A higher resolution means that it is more easy to distinguish two or more objects that are
close together (1 mark)
3 Mitochondria are sub-cellular structures.
a State the function of mitochondria.
The mitochondria are the site of aerobic respiration which releases energy and acts as an
energy supply to the cell (1 mark)
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Exam-style questions B1.1 Cell structures
Name Sianee Nanthakumar Class ..... Date ....................
b A mitochondrion can be viewed through an electron microscope.
The length of the mitochondrion in the image is 120 mm.
The actual length of the mitochondrion is 1.0 10–3 mm.
i Calculate the magnification of the picture.
Write down the formula you use and show your working.
Magnification =image size/ actual size
=120mm/1.0 10–3 mm
=120000
magnification …120000…………. (3 marks)
ii Some cells have more mitochondria than others.
Suggest a type of human cell that has more mitochondria and give a
reason for your suggestion.
Type of cell
Muscle cells
Reason
Cells that need more energy for things like movement require more energy therefore
they will have more mitochondria compared to other cells in order to satisfy the
demand of energy for the cell. 2 marks)
4 a Circle the correct word in bold to show the steps taken when placing a
new slide onto a light microscope for the first time.
Circle one bold word in each sentence.
The distance from the stage to the objective lens should be minimum /
maximum.
The first objective lens used should be the lowest / highest magnification.
(1 mark)
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Exam-style questions B1.1 Cell structures
Name Sianee Nanthakumar Class ..... Date ....................
b Some plant cells grow longer and then divide to form two new cells.
A university student wants to watch the plant cells as they grow and divide.
She has access to both light and electron microscopes.
Suggest which type of microscope she should use and give reasons for
your suggestion.
Type of microscope
Electron microscope
Reasons
With light microscopes, you can only see quite large subcellular structures like the
nucleus or the cell wall but with an electron microscope you can see the functions of
subcellular structures as electron microscopes have a higher magnification and resolution
therefore the university student can observe the growth and division of the cell. (2 marks)
c Describe the functions of the cell surface membrane in animal cells.
You should explain at least two functions.
The cell surface membrane acts as a selectively permeable barrier which controls the
movement of substances in and out of the cell. Furthermore, the cell surface membrane has
receptor cells which is used for cell-to- cell signalling (3 marks)
5 Figure 2 is a drawing of the bacteria that cause cholera as seen under a light
microscope.
Figure 2
a Suggest why one of the bacterial cells looks shorter than the other two.
(1 mark)
b Cholera bacteria live in water.
Suggest the function of the flagellum shown in the drawing.
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Exam-style questions B1.1 Cell structures
Name Sianee Nanthakumar Class ..... Date ....................
The flagella is a tail-like strcutyre which enables bacterium cells to move through liquids
easily
(1 mark)
c The number of cholera bacteria can double every 30 minutes.
Starting from 100 bacteria, calculate how many there are after two hours.
Assume that no bacteria die in that time.
Show how you worked out your answer.
number of cholera bacteria after two hours 1600 (2 marks)
6 Write about the ways in which animal, plant and bacterial cells are similar to
each other and ways in which they are different.
Plants cells and bacterial cells are both similair because they both contain some of the same
subecllualr structures including the cell wall, the cell mebrane, ribosomes and cytoplasm.
Animal cells also share the cell membrane ,ribosomes and cytoplasm but it does not share a
cell wall with the bacterium cell. The ribosomes in animal ,plant and bacterial cells all have
the same function which is being the site of proteinsynthesis but the ribosomes in bacterial
cells (prokaryote) are smaller than ribosomes in plant and animal cells (eukaryotes).
Furthermore, both plant and animal cells share cell walls and the cell walls both have the
same function which is to be rigid and provide strength to the cell. However, the cell wall in
plant cells are made from cellulose whereas the cell wall in bacterial cells are made from a
compound called peptidoglycn. Animal and plant cells both have a nucleus which establishes
that they are eukaryotic cells. Whereas, bacterial cells have no nucleus which establishes
that they are prokaryotic cells
(6 marks)
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