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Class 6 Science: Diversity in the Living World, 8 practice questions with answers

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These are 8 practice questions on Chapter 2, Diversity in the Living World, of the new NCERT Class 6 Science textbook, Curiosity. Each has a worked answer and the textbook page it comes from. They cover telling herbs, shrubs and trees apart, finding the odd plant out by its seeds, roots and leaves, monocots and dicots, how sure the "venation and roots" rule is, comparing adaptations in a pond and a desert, working out how someone grouped animals, why plants and animals depend on each other, and amphibians. Try each one on paper before you open the answer.

These questions are our own, drafted with AI help, and every answer was checked against the textbook page it cites, but no practising teacher has reviewed them yet. If you find a mistake, please tell us.

What the chapter says you need

Facts from the NCERT textbook (Curiosity: Textbook of Science for Grade 6, Chapter 2, printed pages 9 to 34):

Plants: stems, roots, leaves and seeds

Question 1. Tanya has a coriander (dhaniya) plant in her kitchen garden. It is shorter than her knee and has a soft, green stem with a few branches. She says it is a shrub "because it has branches". Find her mistake. Which group does the plant belong to?

Answer: it is a herb; having branches does not make a plant a shrub. Herbs, shrubs and trees are told apart by their height and the kind of stem, and by where the branches start. A shrub has several hard, brown, woody stems that branch close to the ground. Tanya's plant is small and its stem is soft and green, so it is a herb. (Herbs, shrubs and trees, pages 16 and 17.)

Question 2. Which is the odd one out: groundnut, sugarcane, bamboo, onion? Give your reason using their seeds, roots and leaves.

Answer: groundnut; it is a dicot and the other three are monocots. A groundnut seed splits into two halves, its two cotyledons, so groundnut is a dicot: it has a taproot and leaves with reticulate venation. Sugarcane and bamboo are tall grasses, and onion has long leaves with veins running side by side. All three are monocots: one cotyledon, fibrous roots and parallel venation. (Venation, page 17; roots, page 18; dicots and monocots, page 20.)

Question 3. Sana pulls up a rice plant and sees a bunch of thin roots of the same size and leaves with veins running side by side. She says, "Rice is a food grain like chickpea, so its seed must have two cotyledons." Find her mistake.

Answer: rice is a monocot, so its seed has one cotyledon. Fibrous roots and parallel venation are the features of a monocot, and monocot seeds have a single cotyledon. Being a food grain tells us nothing about the number of cotyledons; chickpea is a dicot, while rice, like maize and wheat, is a monocot. (Fibrous roots, page 18; monocots and dicots, page 20.)

Question 4. Meena finds a new plant whose leaves have a net of veins on both sides of a middle vein. She says, "So it definitely has a taproot." Her teacher points out that the textbook says plants with this venation generally have taproots. What does "generally" mean here, and how can Meena be sure?

Answer: "generally" means usually, not always; she can only be sure by looking at the roots. The leaves show reticulate venation, and plants with reticulate venation usually have taproots, so a taproot is a good prediction. But a rule that holds "generally" can have exceptions, so to be certain Meena should gently dig out the plant (or a small one of the same kind), wash the roots and see whether there is one main root with side roots, then replant it. (The relation between venation and roots, page 19; observing roots without damaging the plant, page 18.)

Animals, habitats and adaptations

Question 5. A lotus grows in a pond, with its roots in the mud and its broad leaves on long stalks at the surface of the water. Asha says, "The lotus and the cactus are both adapted to save water." Is she right? Name each plant's habitat and say what its special feature helps it do.

Answer: no. The cactus saves water, but the lotus lives where water is plentiful. A cactus lives in the desert, a terrestrial habitat with very little water, and its thick, fleshy stem stores water. A lotus lives in a pond, an aquatic habitat. Its long stalks hold its leaves at the surface, where they get sunlight and air while the roots stay in the mud. Both features are adaptations, but each one fits the plant's own habitat; they are not the same adaptation. (Cactus in the desert, pages 24 and 25; adaptations and habitat, page 27; aquatic habitats, page 28.)

Question 6. A student put some animals into two groups. Group 1: sparrow, bat, butterfly. Group 2: snake, snail, slug. What basis did the student use? Name one more animal that fits each group.

Answer: how they move. Group 1 fly using wings; Group 2 move along the ground without legs. Every animal in Group 1 has wings and can fly; every animal in Group 2 has no legs and crawls or slides along the ground. For example, a dragonfly could join Group 1, and an earthworm could join Group 2. The type of movement and the body part used for it is one basis for grouping animals; other students might group the same animals by where they live or what they eat, and that is also correct. (Grouping by movement, pages 21 and 22; different bases for grouping, page 14.)

Question 7. Birds eat the small fruits of a banyan tree and drop the seeds far away in their droppings. Suppose all these birds disappeared from a region. What could happen to the banyan trees there, and what does this show?

Answer: fewer new banyan trees would grow in new places; plants and animals depend on each other. The birds get food from the tree, and in return they carry its seeds away from the parent tree, where new trees can grow. Without the birds, fewer seeds would reach new places, so fewer young banyan trees would grow. The same chain works the other way: if the trees were cut down, the birds would lose food and shelter. This shows that plants and animals are dependent on each other, and losing one member of a region's biodiversity affects others. (Each member has a role; animals spread seeds, page 14; loss of habitat and biodiversity, page 28.)

Question 8. Neel sees toads near a pond in the rainy season and says they are aquatic animals. Find his mistake. Into which group should toads go?

Answer: toads live both in water and on land, so they are amphibians, not just aquatic animals. An aquatic animal lives in water. Toads, like frogs, spend part of their lives in water and part on land, often quite far from water. Animals that can live in water as well as on land are called amphibians. (Terrestrial and aquatic habitats, pages 27 and 28; amphibians, page 28.)

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Sources

All opened and read on 22 October 2026. Page numbers are the printed page numbers of the textbook; printed page = PDF page + 8.

The facts are from the textbook pages above. The questions and worked answers are our own. This guide is general information; follow your teacher and the textbook.