Description

Year 7 Science : Classification (Short Answers)

1. How to group living things by their body features:
Look at what the animal or plant looks like — for example, does it have a backbone, legs, wings, or scales?

2. How to use a branching key (dichotomous key):
Start with a yes/no question about the organism, then follow the arrows or lines to more questions until you find its name.

3. What are the five main kingdoms?

• Plants – make their own food, don’t move.
• Animals – eat food, move around.
• Bacteria – tiny single cells with no nucleus.
• Fungi – feed on dead things (e.g. mushrooms).
• Protists/Protoctists – mostly single-celled but more complex than bacteria.

4. What makes the five kingdoms different?
They differ in cell type, how they feed, and how they live (e.g. animals eat, plants make food, fungi absorb food from other things).

5. What’s the difference between vertebrates and invertebrates?

• Vertebrates have a backbone.
• Invertebrates don’t.

6. Examples of animals in each group:

• Vertebrates: mammals (dog), birds (eagle), fish (salmon), reptiles (lizard), amphibians (frog)
• Invertebrates: insects (ant), arachnids (spider), crustaceans (crab), molluscs (snail), worms, jellyfish, sponges, starfish

7. How to sort vertebrates into five groups:
Look for features like:

• Mammals – have fur, feed young with milk
• Birds – feathers, lay eggs
• Fish – live in water, have gills and scales
• Reptiles – dry scaly skin, lay eggs
• Amphibians – moist skin, live in water and on land

8. How to sort invertebrates into six groups:
Use features like body segments, legs, and shell:

• Insects – 3 body parts, 6 legs
• Arachnids – 8 legs, 2 body parts
• Crustaceans – 10 or more legs, hard shell
• Molluscs – soft body, often a shell
• Worms – long, no legs
• Echinoderms – star-shaped or spiny, like starfish

9. What is binomial naming?
It’s a way of giving every living thing two Latin names — the genus and the species, like Homo sapiens for humans.

10. Examples of binomial names:

• Human: Homo sapiens
• House cat: Felis catus
• Dog: Canis lupus

Oak tree: Quercus robur