Work sheet 1

Q1. A scientist wanted to know what the best conditions for the digestion of proteins are. He used three glass flasks,
each containing some egg white made the liquid in the flasks go cloudy.to each flask he added a chemical, called
protease, obtained from the human stomach. The diagrams below show what was in each flask.

a) After six hours, the liquid in flask was clear and not cloudy. What do you think had happened?

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

What type of substance is protease?

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

What effect does boiling have on the activity of the protease?

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

All the flasks were kept at 37 C. Why was this?

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

What does this experiment tell you about the conditions needed to digest protein?

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

b) Where would you find conditions like those in flask B in the body?

____________________________________________________________________________________________

What are the proteins broken down into during digestion?

____________________________________________________________________________________________

Worksheet 2
Q1. In an experiment to find out how the digestive system works, a student filled a cellulose or visking tubing ‘bag’
with a mixture of glucose solution and starch solution. The bag was then sealed.
The outside of the bag was then washed under the tap and placed in a boiling tube containing distilled water. It was
allowed to stand for an hour. At the end of this time, a sample was taken from the water in the boiling tube and
tested for both glucose and starch solutions.

What would the student use to test for starch and what would happen if starch was present?

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

What would the student use to test for glucose and what would happen if glucose was present?

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

What do you think the student found in the boiling tube after one hour?

_____________________________________________________________________________________________
Explain the answer you have given in c) above.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

Starch is changed to glucose in the human digestive system. What is the name of the substance which brings about
this change?

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

Q2. On the diagram below write the names of the three different types of enzyme the body uses to help it to break
down the large molecules of carbohydrates, proteins, and fats into smaller molecules like this:

starch ----------------------------------------------------------------------- glucose and other simple sugars

protein ---------------------------------------------------------------------- amino acids

fats --------------------------------------------------------------------------- fatty acids and glycerol