Anatomy 101: Human Body Quiz

Estimated Completion Time
2 min
Anatomy 101: Human Body Quiz
Image: fotostorm/Getty Images

About This Quiz

You remember a little ditty about the thigh bone being connected to the hip bone, which was in turn connected to the backbone. But what else do you remember about human anatomy? The answers to this quiz are all inside of you -- literally.
How many sweat glands does the average person have?
2.6 millon
Those 2.6 million sweat glands are distributed all over the body, excepting the lips, nipples and genitals.
26 million
260 million

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Are there more bones in the hand or the foot?
hand
The hand sports 27 bones, barely edging out the foot's 26 bones.
foot
They have the same.

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What do a blood vessel, bladder and an airway have in common?
They are all cardiac muscles responsible for pumping blood.
They are skeletal muscles that grow larger with exercise.
They are all smooth muscles that contract involuntarily.
Michael Jackson sang about smooth criminals, but blood vessels, bladders and airways are smooth muscles.

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How does blood enter the heart?
pulmonary artery
superior vena cava and inferior vena cava
No blood gets into the heart without passing through the superior vena cava and the inferior vena cava first.
mitral valve

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Which of the following is not an axial bone?
cranium
ribs
shoulder
The shoulder is an appendicular bone, which means it was made to move. Those bones are connected to axial bones like the cranium, spine and ribs, which form the axis of the body and protect delicate organs.

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If you were to stretch out your entire digestive system, how long would it be?
10 feet (3 meters)
30 feet (9 meters)
Thirty feet. The intestines count for most of it.
50 feet (15 meters)

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What is brown fat?
fat tissue that protects the spine from injury
fat tissue found mostly in newborn babies that helps them make heat
Adult humans have little to no brown fat, the presence of which helps keep babies warm.
fat tissue that settles mostly on the abdominal muscles of adults

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The human brain is a lot larger than most other mammalian brains due to the growth of what brain section?
medulla
cerebellum
cerebral cortex
Human brain growth is attributed to a larger cerebral cortex, which is charged with tasks including memory, thought processes and motor functions.

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What are the three basic parts of a neuron?
cell body, axon, dendrite
The brain consists of more than 100 billion nerve cells called neurons, each of which comes equipped with a cell body, axon and dendrite.
membrane, ion, nociceptor
receptor, synapse, reflex pathway

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What is the most common blood type?
AB+
B-
O+
More than a third of the U.S. population has type O+ blood.

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At birth, how many bones do you have?
350
We start off life with 350 bones. However, bones fuse together as we grow, leaving an adult with only 206 bones.
206
411

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How much saliva does an average person produce in a lifetime?
250,000 quarts
200,000 quarts
25,000 quarts
In a lifetime, the average person produces enough saliva to fill a couple of swimming pools -- 25,000 quarts!

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Which of the following is NOT a type of stem cell?
umbilical stem cells
fetal stem cells
fat stem cells
There are typically four types of stem cells: embryonic, fetal, umbilical and adult stem cells.

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Why does your nose run when you are crying?
The pressure that releases tears also releases mucus in the nasal cavity.
Tear ducts drain into the back of the nose.
Get your tissues! Your nose begins to run because tear ducts drain into the back of the nose.
The nasal cavity receives the same signal from the brain as the tear duct to begin crying.

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How many hair follicles are on the average human head?
100,000
The lighter the hair, the more hair follicles are present on the human head. However, on average, the human head has about 100,000 hair follicles.
220,000
75,000

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How many muscles control your eyeballs?
seven
four
six
Your eyeballs are controlled by six muscles. This enables you to look up, down, left and right.

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What is the Adam’s apple?
a biblical reference to the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden
protruding thyroid cartilage on the larynx
The Adam’s apple is cartilage found on the larynx. This protruding cartilage is often more noticeable in men. Researchers say that the larger the Adam’s apple, the deeper the voice.
a noticeable mass of tissue that is used for digesting food

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If we were to stretch out the blood vessels from end to end, how many miles will blood travel?
6,000 miles (9,656 kilometers)
60,000 miles (96,561 kilometers)
Blood has a long road to travel! There are about 60,000 miles (96,561 kilometers) of blood vessels in the human body.
600,000 miles (965,606 kilometers)

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Where is your heart really located?
left side of the chest
middle of the chest, slightly to the left
Although we often hold the left side of our chest when saluting the flag, our heart is actually slightly to the left in the middle of the chest.
middle of the chest, slightly to the right

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What is the average thickness of human skin?
.2 mm
2 mm
The human skin’s thickness averages just 2 millimeters. Your skin gets an eighth of all your blood supply.
12 mm

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You Got:
/20
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