Log In | Register

Item EB060002: A friend who wants to keep her fingernails from breaking can eat proteins with all the necessary building blocks (amino acids) because her body can carry out chemical reactions to change proteins in her food to keratin.

Human fingernails are made mostly of the protein keratin. Imagine your friend is complaining about her fingernails breaking all the time. She says she thinks she needs to eat more keratin in order to make her nails stronger. Do you agree or disagree? Why or why not?

  1. Yes, she must eat food that is made up of keratin because the keratin from food will be added to her nails.
  2. Yes, she must eat keratin because her body can only use the digestion products of keratin from food to make the keratin proteins that are needed to build new nails.
  3. No, she can eat food containing proteins that can provide all the necessary building blocks (amino acids) because her body can carry out chemical reactions to change the proteins from food into the keratin proteins needed to produce new nails.
  4. No, it does not matter what the food is made up of because her body can use any food as a source of energy to make the keratin proteins needed to produce new nails.
Distribution of Responses
Chart showing distrubtion of responses for Item 060002
Points Earned
Group Correct Total Percent
Overall 125 255 49%
Grades
  6–8 N/A N/A N/A
  9–12 108 229 47%
Gender
  Male5713044%
  Female519852%
Primary Language
  English9721146%
  Other91275%

View data table

Distribution of Responses
Chart showing distrubtion of responses for Item 060002
Points Earned
Group Correct Total Percent
Overall 141 300 47%
Grades
  6–8 N/A N/A N/A
  9–12 134 280 48%
Gender
  Male7716347%
  Female5110748%
Primary Language
  English12225348%
  Other92143%

View data table