The Digestive System Trivia Quiz

Answer: Mouth

Unless you have a special condition that requires feeding through a tube, chances are that you eat through your mouth. As soon as the food goes into your mouth, salivary glands produce saliva to break the food down. This makes the food all wet and helps it to easily slide down the throat for extra digestion.

Answer: False

Digestion is the process by which your body breaks down food into small nutrient molecules. There are two different kinds of digestion. One kind is mechanical, which occurs when foods are physically broken down, such as when you bite them. In chemical digestion, chemicals that are produced by the body break foods into smaller pieces.

Answer: Epiglottis

Once you swallow food, there are two pipes in your body. One is the esophagus and the other is the windpipe. Food is supposed to travel down the esophagus and cannot go down the windpipe. If it goes down the windpipe, you might choke. The epiglottis is a flap of tissue which seals off the windpipe.

Answer: Mucus

Mucus is like a lubricant in your esophagus. It not only lines your esophagus but it also lines your stomach. This protects the walls of your stomach from the acids that help digest the food.

Answer: Peristalsis

Peristalsis involves muscles contracting and relaxing which results in a squeezing inside your esophagus. Each "squeeze" brings the food closer to the stomach. Peristalsis is really fast and takes eight to nine seconds for the food to reach the stomach.

Answer: Stomach

The stomach is located in the abdomen and is a J-shaped, muscular pouch. Contrary to popular belief, your stomach is not located where your navel is. Instead, it is closer to the rib cage. Inside the stomach, muscles contract to produce a churning motion which mixes the food with the fluids inside your stomach. Chemical digestion occurs when the food comes in contact with digestive juices.

Answer: Hydrochloric Acid

Hydrochloric acid is a clear, colorless acid. It is made up of hydrogen and chloride. The type of hydrochloric acid found in the stomach is gastric acid. Gastric acid is made up of HCI (hydrochloric acid), KCI (potassium chloride), and NaCl (sodium chloride or table salt).

This acid aids in chemical digestion and is found in digestive juices. Hydrochloric acid kills many bacteria that you swallow. Mucus in your stomach protects the outer linings of the stomach from the highly corrosive hydrochloric acid.

Answer: False

The small intestine is six meters long and two to three centimeters wide. The large intestine, however, is 1.5 meters long and about six centimeters in diameter. When the food reaches the small intestine, it is already a liquid. The small intestine then takes all the nutrients. Millions of tiny structures, called villi, inside the small intestine absorb the molecules.

Answer: True

The liver is located in the upper-right portion of the abdomen. It is the largest internal organ and helps in digestion by producing bile. Bile is a substance that breaks down lipids (molecules such as fats, waxes etc). After the liver produces the bile, it is stored in the gall-bladder.

This is known as gall. The bile is sent to the small intestine during digestion to aid in the absorption and digestion of the food.

Answer: Absorbing excess water

The large intestine is the last part of the digestion process. It is about 1.5 meters long and runs up the right side of the abdomen. The large intestine contains bacteria which feed on passing material and usually do not cause disease. Some of them are helpful in producing Vitamin K.

The large intestine ends in a tube called the rectum. All the food that has passed is now in a compressed form and will be eliminated through the anus, an opening at the end of the rectum.