Unit 1: Unity and Diversity
Topic 1.4: Cell Structure Questions
Practice 20 exam-style questions for IB Biology Topic 1.4. Review the question stems below, then unlock the full Question Bank to access markschemes, model answers, and AI grading.
1State1 mark
2026
State the formula used to calculate the magnification of a drawing made from a micrograph.
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A microscope can resolve structures as small as a ribosome inside a cell.
What does this microscope most likely use to form its image?
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Outline one structural difference between a prokaryotic cell and a eukaryotic cell.
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2026
State one structure found in a plant cell but not in an animal cell.
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2026
State two structures found in every living cell.
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Distinguish between the magnification and the resolution of a microscope.
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A Paramecium is observed with several food vacuoles, each containing ingested algae that are being digested.
Which function of life is the Paramecium carrying out?
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A swimming bacterium has flagella and many ribosomes.
State the function of (a) the flagella and (b) the ribosomes.
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Which list gives ONLY structures that are present in every living cell?
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A microbiologist examines a freshly isolated soil bacterium.
List two features of a prokaryotic cell that distinguish it from a eukaryotic cell.
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Draw a simple two-column table comparing a light microscope and an electron microscope.
Include the type of beam used, the relative resolution, and whether living cells can be viewed.
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Four students each name a structure they think is present in a typical animal cell.
Which structure IS found in an animal cell?
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Which structure is present in a typical eukaryotic cell but absent from every prokaryotic cell?
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A fungal cell has a rigid outer wall.
What is the main component of a fungal cell wall?
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Animal cells, plant cells and fungal cells are placed in the same broad category because of one shared feature.
Which feature do all three share?
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Which statement is one of the three points of cell theory?
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Which feature is found in a eukaryotic cell but NEVER in a prokaryotic cell?
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A motile bacterium swims through pond water.
Which structure carries out this movement?
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A student magnifies a blurry photo of a cell on a screen until it fills the wall, but no new structures become visible.
Which property of the original image limited what the student could see?
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