Free Animal and Plant Cell MCQs with Answers

• A. Mitochondrion
• B. Cellulose cell wall
• C. Ribosome
• D. Golgi apparatus

Explanation: A cellulose cell wall lies outside the plasma membrane of every plant cell and gives it a fixed shape and resistance to bursting when…

• A. a rigid protein sheet with lipids attached
• B. a phospholipid bilayer with proteins embedded in and moving through it
• C. a single layer of phospholipids
• D. a continuous layer of cholesterol

Explanation: Singer and Nicolson described a bilayer of phospholipids in which proteins float like icebergs, free to move laterally.

• A. Robert Hooke
• B. Schleiden and Schwann
• C. Rudolf Virchow
• D. Anton van Leeuwenhoek

Explanation: Schleiden and Schwann established that plants and animals are made of cells, but it was Virchow who added in 1855 that every cell comes…

• A. tonoplast
• B. plasmalemma
• C. nuclear envelope
• D. cell wall

Explanation: The tonoplast controls what enters and leaves the cell sap, and the vacuole's contents create the osmotic pressure that keeps the cell…

• A. Centrioles
• B. Mitochondria
• C. Golgi apparatus
• D. Ribosomes

Explanation: Higher plant cells organise their spindle without centrioles, which is why the presence of a pair of centrioles beside the nucleus is…

• A. pores in the nuclear envelope
• B. the enzymes that digest the cell wall
• C. protein channels in the plasma membrane of animal cells
• D. cytoplasmic strands passing through the walls and connecting adjacent plant cells

Explanation: These fine channels of cytoplasm run through pits in the cell walls and join neighbouring plant cells into one continuous system, so…

• A. does not require a carrier protein
• B. requires ATP and can move a substance against its concentration gradient
• C. occurs only in plant cells
• D. moves only water molecules

Explanation: Both use carrier proteins, but facilitated diffusion is passive and can only run down a gradient, whereas active transport spends ATP and…

• A. from a region of low water potential to one of high water potential
• B. against a concentration gradient using ATP
• C. from a region of higher water potential to one of lower water potential through a partially permeable membrane
• D. along with dissolved solutes through a partially permeable membrane

Explanation: Water always moves down its own water potential gradient, that is from the more dilute solution to the more concentrated one, and the…

• A. the rigid cellulose wall resists further expansion once the cell is turgid
• B. water cannot enter the cell at all
• C. the vacuole absorbs the excess water permanently
• D. the plasma membrane is impermeable to water

Explanation: Water enters by osmosis until the wall pushes back with a pressure equal to the inward osmotic pull, and the cell stops taking in more…

• A. shrink and become crenated
• B. remain unchanged
• C. become turgid but survive
• D. swell and burst

Explanation: Water enters the cell by osmosis because the cytoplasm has the lower water potential, and with no cell wall to resist the pressure the…

• A. a plant cell takes in water and becomes turgid
• B. the protoplast of a plant cell shrinks away from the cell wall in a concentrated solution
• C. the cell wall dissolves completely
• D. the nucleus divides into two

Explanation: In a solution of lower water potential than the cell sap, water leaves the vacuole, the protoplast contracts and pulls away from the wall…

• A. cellulose
• B. chitin
• C. peptidoglycan
• D. lignin

Explanation: Cellulose microfibrils, polymers of beta glucose, give the plant wall its strength, while chitin builds fungal walls and peptidoglycan…

• A. cellulose
• B. pectin
• C. lignin
• D. suberin

Explanation: The middle lamella is a shared pectin-rich layer formed first during cell division, gluing adjacent walls together.

• A. increases steadily
• B. remains constant
• C. decreases
• D. first falls and then rises again

Explanation: Volume grows with the cube of the radius while surface area grows only with the square, so a larger cell has proportionally less membrane…

• A. pinocytosis
• B. osmosis
• C. facilitated diffusion
• D. phagocytosis

Explanation: Phagocytosis, literally cell eating, wraps the membrane around a particle to form a vacuole, as white blood cells do to bacteria.

• A. engulfs large solid particles
• B. occurs without any membrane
• C. takes in dissolved substances in tiny droplets of fluid
• D. occurs only in plant cells

Explanation: Pinocytosis brings in small vesicles of extracellular fluid with dissolved solutes, while phagocytosis handles solid particles.

• A. releases materials in vesicles that fuse with the plasma membrane
• B. takes in fluid droplets from its surroundings
• C. pumps ions against their concentration gradient
• D. divides its cytoplasm during cell division

Explanation: Secretory vesicles from the Golgi move to the surface and merge with the membrane, discharging their contents outside, which is how…

• A. isotonic
• B. hypotonic
• C. pure water
• D. hypertonic

Explanation: In a hypertonic solution the external solute concentration is higher, so water leaves the cell by osmosis and it crenates.

• A. requires energy from ATP
• B. uses specific carrier or channel proteins in the membrane
• C. moves substances against their concentration gradient
• D. occurs only through the lipid portion of the membrane

Explanation: Facilitated diffusion still follows the concentration gradient and costs no energy, but polar molecules and ions pass through specific…

• A. cytoplasm
• B. a nuclear envelope
• C. ribosomes
• D. a plasma membrane

Explanation: The defining absence in a prokaryote is a membrane-bound nucleus; its DNA lies free in the nucleoid.