{"slug":"cbse-class-10-science-life-processes","title":"Life Processes","description":"Nutrition, respiration, transport and excretion in plants and humans, weighted towards digestion, the pathways of glucose breakdown, transpiration, the heart and kidney reabsorption that the 2026 board papers asked.","board":"CBSE","grade":"Class 10","subject":"Science","chapter":"Life Processes","url":"https://www.flipnlearn.app/deck/cbse-class-10-science-life-processes","studyUrl":"https://www.flipnlearn.app/deck/cbse-class-10-science-life-processes/study","cards":[{"id":"autotrophic-nutrition","kind":"term-definition","front":"Autotrophic nutrition","back":"Nutrition in which an organism takes in simple inorganic materials, carbon dioxide and water, and makes its own food from them. Green plants and some bacteria are autotrophs; heterotrophs such as animals and fungi depend on them directly or indirectly."},{"id":"photosynthesis","kind":"term-definition","front":"Photosynthesis","back":"The process by which autotrophs turn carbon dioxide and water into carbohydrates, using sunlight and chlorophyll. Carbohydrates that are not used at once are stored as starch, the plant's internal energy reserve."},{"id":"events-during-photosynthesis","kind":"concept-question","front":"What are the three events that take place during photosynthesis?","back":"Absorption of light energy by chlorophyll; conversion of light energy to chemical energy along with splitting of water into hydrogen and oxygen; and reduction of carbon dioxide to carbohydrates. They need not happen one straight after another — desert plants take in carbon dioxide at night."},{"id":"stomata","kind":"term-definition","front":"Stomata","back":"Tiny pores on the surface of leaves through which massive gaseous exchange for photosynthesis takes place. Guard cells swell with water to open a pore and shrink to close it, and the plant closes them when it does not need carbon dioxide, to limit water loss."},{"id":"peristalsis","kind":"term-definition","front":"Peristalsis","back":"The rhythmic contraction of the muscles lining the alimentary canal, which pushes food forward in a regulated way so that each part can process it properly. These movements occur all along the gut."},{"id":"secretions-of-the-gastric-glands","kind":"concept-question","front":"What do the gastric glands in the stomach wall secrete, and what does each secretion do?","back":"Hydrochloric acid, which creates the acidic medium that the enzyme pepsin needs; pepsin, which digests proteins; and mucus, which normally shields the stomach's inner lining from that acid."},{"id":"how-bile-and-pancreatic-juice-act","kind":"concept-question","front":"How do the secretions of the liver and the pancreas act on food in the small intestine?","back":"Bile from the liver makes the acidic food from the stomach alkaline so pancreatic enzymes can act, and bile salts break large fat globules into smaller ones. Pancreatic juice contains trypsin to digest proteins and lipase to break down the emulsified fats."},{"id":"villi","kind":"term-definition","front":"Villi","back":"Numerous finger-like projections on the inner lining of the small intestine that increase the surface area for absorbing digested food. They are richly supplied with blood vessels, which carry the absorbed food to every cell of the body."},{"id":"breakdown-of-glucose-by-different-pathways","kind":"concept-question","front":"Glucose is first broken down into pyruvate in the cytoplasm. What does pyruvate become in yeast, in muscle cells short of oxygen, and in mitochondria with oxygen?","back":"In yeast, without oxygen, it becomes ethanol and carbon dioxide (fermentation). In muscle cells lacking oxygen it becomes lactic acid, whose build-up causes cramps. In mitochondria, using oxygen, it becomes carbon dioxide and water, releasing far more energy."},{"id":"atp","kind":"term-definition","front":"ATP","back":"The energy currency for most cellular processes. Energy released in respiration is used to make ATP from ADP and inorganic phosphate; breaking its terminal phosphate linkage with water releases 30.5 kJ/mol, which drives endothermic reactions such as muscle contraction and protein synthesis."},{"id":"alveoli","kind":"term-definition","front":"Alveoli","back":"Balloon-like structures at the ends of the finest air passages in the lungs, where gases are exchanged. Their walls carry an extensive network of blood vessels, and spread out they would cover about 80 square metres, giving a very large surface for exchange."},{"id":"why-the-lungs-hold-a-residual-volume","kind":"concept-question","front":"Why do the lungs always contain a residual volume of air?","back":"So that, throughout the breathing cycle of taking air in and letting it out, there is enough time for oxygen to be absorbed into the blood and for carbon dioxide to be released."},{"id":"haemoglobin","kind":"term-definition","front":"Haemoglobin","back":"The respiratory pigment in human red blood corpuscles, with a very high affinity for oxygen. It takes up oxygen in the lungs and releases it in tissues short of oxygen; carbon dioxide, being more soluble in water, travels mostly dissolved in the blood."},{"id":"why-ventricles-have-thicker-walls","kind":"concept-question","front":"Why do the ventricles have thicker muscular walls than the atria?","back":"The ventricles have to pump blood out into the various organs of the body and to the lungs, while the atria only collect blood and pass it on. Stopping blood from flowing backwards is the job of the valves, not of the thick walls."},{"id":"double-circulation","kind":"term-definition","front":"Double circulation","back":"The passage of blood through the heart twice in each cycle round the body, as in vertebrates other than fish. Separating oxygenated from deoxygenated blood gives birds and mammals the efficient oxygen supply their high energy needs demand; fish, with two-chambered hearts, pass blood through the heart only once."},{"id":"lymph","kind":"term-definition","front":"Lymph","back":"Tissue fluid formed when plasma, proteins and blood cells escape through pores in capillary walls. It resembles plasma but is colourless with less protein; it carries digested fat from the intestine and drains excess fluid back into the blood."},{"id":"xylem","kind":"term-definition","front":"Xylem","back":"The plant tissue that moves water and minerals obtained from the soil. Its vessels and tracheids in the roots, stems and leaves are interconnected into one continuous system of water-conducting channels reaching every part of the plant."},{"id":"how-water-rises-in-a-plant","kind":"concept-question","front":"How is water moved upwards through the xylem of a plant?","back":"Root cells actively take up ions, so water enters from the soil and is pushed up as root pressure, which matters most at night. During the day, evaporation of water from leaf cells creates a suction, the transpiration pull, which becomes the main force drawing water up."},{"id":"transpiration","kind":"term-definition","front":"Transpiration","back":"The loss of water as vapour from the aerial parts of a plant. It helps absorb water and move it, with dissolved minerals, up from the roots to the leaves, and it helps regulate temperature; it does not transport food, which is the work of the phloem."},{"id":"phloem","kind":"term-definition","front":"Phloem","back":"The plant tissue that carries soluble products of photosynthesis, amino acids and other substances, a process called translocation. It works through sieve tubes with companion cells in both directions, using energy from ATP to raise osmotic pressure and move material to where the plant needs it."},{"id":"bowmans-capsule","kind":"diagram-label","front":"In a nephron, what is the cup-shaped end of the coiled tube called, and what does it do?","back":"Bowman's capsule. It surrounds a cluster of very thin-walled blood capillaries and collects the filtrate from them, which then flows along the tube as urine forms."},{"id":"what-decides-how-much-water-is-reabsorbed","kind":"concept-question","front":"On what does the amount of water reabsorbed from the filtrate in the kidneys depend?","back":"On the amount of surplus water in the body, and on the quantity of dissolved waste that has to be excreted. As urine passes along the tube, much of the water is taken back, along with glucose, amino acids and salts."},{"id":"how-plants-get-rid-of-excretory-products","kind":"concept-question","front":"How do plants get rid of their excretory products?","back":"They lose excess water by transpiration, store wastes in cell vacuoles or in leaves that later fall off, and store others as resins and gums, especially in old xylem. Some waste substances are excreted into the soil around them."}]}