Free Human anatomy multiple-choice practice questions with hints and explanations, at three levels: key terms and facts, applying the concepts, cases and analysis.
Where are the alveoli found?
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Anatomy is the study of the structure of the body: what the parts are called, where they lie and how they are connected. Physiology, a separate subject, studies how those parts work.
Doctors, nurses and therapists use anatomy every day. To give an injection, feel a pulse or understand an injury, you need to know exactly what lies under the skin at that spot.
The body is built in levels. Each level is made of the one below it:
The skin is the largest organ of the body. The liver is the largest internal organ.
Answer: Cells, tissues, organs, organ systems. Cells group into tissues, tissues build organs, and organs work together in systems. Putting organs before tissues is the usual slip: an organ such as the heart contains several tissues.
Every direction in anatomy refers to one standard posture, the anatomical position: standing upright, facing forward, arms at the sides, palms facing forward and feet together.
Directions are always given from the patient’s point of view. “Left” means the patient’s left, even when the patient faces you.
The most important direction terms come in pairs:
Three planes cut the body. The sagittal plane divides it into left and right parts. The coronal (frontal) plane divides it into front and back. The transverse (axial) plane divides it into upper and lower parts.
In the anatomical position the thumb points away from the body. So the radius, the forearm bone on the thumb side, is lateral, and the ulna is medial.
Answer: Distal. The wrist is further from where the arm attaches to the trunk, so it is distal. Proximal is the opposite direction, and in the anatomical position the wrist is below the elbow, so it is inferior, not superior.
Skeleton and joints. An adult has about 206 bones. The femur (thigh bone) is the longest; the ossicles of the middle ear are the smallest.
Muscles. A tendon attaches muscle to bone. A ligament connects bone to bone. There are three kinds of muscle tissue:
Heart and vessels. The heart has four chambers: two atria on top that receive blood and two ventricles below that pump it out. Arteries carry blood away from the heart; veins carry blood back to it.
Nervous system. The central nervous system is the brain and the spinal cord. Twelve pairs of cranial nerves and 31 pairs of spinal nerves form most of the peripheral nervous system.
Breathing and digestion. The diaphragm is the main muscle of breathing. The right lung has three lobes and the left lung has two. The liver makes bile and the gallbladder stores it.
Answer: Cardiac muscle. Cardiac muscle is striped like skeletal muscle but works without conscious control. Skeletal muscle is striated but voluntary; smooth muscle is involuntary but not striated.
Anatomy questions reward a fixed way of thinking more than memorising lists. Use these steps:
Example of step 5: the radial nerve supplies the muscles that extend the wrist. Damage to it after a fracture of the humerus shaft causes “wrist drop”.
Trace the route one stage at a time. Try to name the next stage before you open it.
Blood from the right arm returns to the heart in the superior vena cava. Which chambers and valves does it pass, in order, before it reaches the aorta?
Both venae cavae empty into the right atrium. This blood is low in oxygen (deoxygenated), because the arm has used the oxygen.
From the right atrium the blood passes the tricuspid valve into the right ventricle.
The right ventricle pumps the blood through the pulmonary valve into the pulmonary trunk and the pulmonary arteries, which lead to the lungs.
These arteries carry deoxygenated blood. They are arteries because they carry blood away from the heart.
In the lung capillaries the blood picks up oxygen. The pulmonary veins bring it to the left atrium.
The blood passes the mitral (bicuspid) valve into the left ventricle. The left ventricle has the thickest wall and pumps the blood through the aortic valve into the aorta.
Each side has one atrium, one valve, one ventricle, then one more valve. Every vessel that leaves a ventricle is an artery. The route fits both rules.
Right atrium → tricuspid valve → right ventricle → pulmonary valve → lungs → left atrium → mitral valve → left ventricle → aortic valve → aorta.
Answer: The pulmonary artery. The pulmonary artery takes blood from the right ventricle to the lungs to collect oxygen. Choosing a pulmonary vein comes from the rule “veins carry deoxygenated blood”, which is false for the lung circulation.
For hard cases, ask what the structure normally does and where it runs. The symptom is almost always the loss of that function, below or beyond the point of damage.
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Which flap of tissue covers the entrance to the larynx during swallowing?
The epiglottis folds back over the laryngeal inlet when you swallow, guiding food into the oesophagus instead of the airway.
In which part of the nephron does most reabsorption of water and sodium take place?
The proximal convoluted tubule reabsorbs about two thirds of the filtered sodium and water, plus nearly all glucose and amino acids.
After an injury at the medial epicondyle of the elbow, a patient has numbness of the little finger and weakness of finger abduction. Which nerve is affected?
The ulnar nerve passes behind the medial epicondyle. It supplies most intrinsic hand muscles, including the interossei, and the skin of the little finger.
Doctors, nurses and therapists use anatomy every day. To give an injection, feel a pulse or understand an injury, you need to know exactly what lies under the skin at that spot.
The body is built in levels. Each level is made of the one below it:
Every question has four options, and only one is right. Stuck? Open a small hint first, and the full explanation only when you need it.