The document provides an overview of the characteristics and classification of living organisms, focusing on the seven life processes: movement, respiration, sensitivity, reproduction, growth, excretion, and nutrition. It explains how these processes are essential to define life and discusses their implications for both animals and plants. It also includes exercises aimed at reinforcing knowledge about these life processes and their relevance in the biological classification of organisms.

1. IGCSE
2023-25 Biology Resource
Topic: 1.1 The Characteristics and
Classification of Living Organisms
© 2021, Wolsey Hall Oxford. All rights reserved.

2. The Seven Life Processes

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Life Processes

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• Serious efforts to discover life on other planets
have been going on for many years.
• If extra-terrestrial beings really were
discovered how would scientists decide if
they were alive?
A simple way of sorting everything on our planet
is to divide it into 2 groups
– living things and non-living things.
Signs of life

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Life Processes
All living things have to perform seven life processes.
Do you know what they are?
Each letter in the phrase ‘MRS
GREN’ gives you the first letter of
one of the life processes.
Movement
Respiration
Sensitivity
Reproduction
Growth
Excretion
Nutrition
If something does not perform all of
the seven life processes then it is
not alive.
For something to be classed as
Dead it must have been alive
once !!

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The 7 Life Processes
Movement
Respiration
Sensitivity
Reproduction
Growth
Excretion
Nutrition

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Exercise 1: Animal Movement
1. Why do animals move?
Type of
movement
Example of
animal
Walking
Crawling
Running
Flying
Swimming
Jumping
Swinging
Humans
Insect
Horse
Bird
Fish
Kangaroo
Chimpanzee
To find food, water, shelter, to hide from predators
and to reproduce.
2. Copy and complete the table below:

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Plant Movement
1. Do plants move?
•Yes, plants do move, but
very slowly compared to
most animals.
•Plants move towards
sunlight which they
need to make food.
•Some flowers close
during the night.
•Roots will move towards water
and gravity.
2. Why do plants move?

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Respiration
•Respiration is the process by which
energy is released from our food.
•This energy is used for the organism to
perform the other life processes.
•Most of our food is digested down to glucose.
•This joins with oxygen to release the energy and gives
off the waste products carbon dioxide and water.
Glucose + Oxygen  ENERGY + Carbon dioxide + Water

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Match the word to its correct meaning:
1 respiration
2 oxygen
3 carbon dioxide
4 water
5 energy
6 transport systems
A is a poisonous by-product of respiration.
B take materials to and from respiring cells.
C is needed to release energy from glucose in
the body.
D the process that releases energy from food.
E is made when energy is released from food.
F is needed to do the rest of MRSGREN.
D the process that releases energy from food.
C is needed to release energy from glucose in
the body.
A is a poisonous by-product of respiration.
E is made when energy is released from food.
F is needed to do the rest of MRS GREN.
B take materials to and from respiring cells.

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Exercise 2: Respiration
1. Which gas is required for respiration?
2. What are the waste products of respiration?
3. Write a word equation for the process of respiration.
4. What is the chemical test for carbon dioxide gas?
Oxygen.
Water and Carbon dioxide.
Food + Oxygen  Energy + Carbon dioxide + Water
It turns limewater milky (and then clear again).

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True or false?
1. Respiration means breathing.
2. Respiration occurs in all body cells.
3. Respiration gives out oxygen.
4. Carbon dioxide is used up by respiration.
5. Respiration is a chemical process that
releases energy.
6. Plants do not respire.
FALSE
TRUE
FALSE
FALSE
TRUE
FALSE

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Living things ____________ to produce offspring.
Animals also _________ to catch food, to find a mate and also
to escape any predators.
As we get older, we ______ to reach our full size.
We use energy to do different things. Releasing energy from
food is called ____________ and eating the food we require
is called __________ .
Any waste produced is ________ from our bodies.
Living things must also react to what happens to them.
This is called _________ .
move reproduce sensitivity nutrition excreted
respiration grow

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Sensitivity
Sensitivity is the ability of living things to detect changes in
their surroundings and respond to these changes.
Humans have five senses; do you know what they are?
Touch
Taste
Smell
Sight
Hearing
Skin
Tongue
Nose
Eyes
Ears
Which organs are
associated with these
senses?

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Exercise 3: Sensitivity
1. What is sensitivity?
2. Complete the table below:
3. Name two animals that can hear ultrasound.
Sense Body part
Sight
Ear
Taste
Nose
Touch
Eye
Hearing
Tongue
Smell
Skin
Being able to detect and respond to your surroundings.
Dogs and bats.

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Growth
Animals grow until they
reach adulthood and then
stop growing.
Plants continue to grow
throughout their lives.

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Animal Reproduction
All organisms need to reproduce. Reproduction is the making of
new organisms. If organisms did not reproduce, then once
those organisms died there would be no more of the species left.
Some animals reproduce by
laying eggs.
Example: Birds
Some animals reproduce by
giving birth to live young.
Example: Mammals
Adult and young kangaroo
Mammals suckle their young
- the females provide milk for
their offspring.

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Exercise 5: Link the Matching Pairs
Acorn
Cub
Calf
Baby
Pup
Lion
Seal
Oak tree
Human
Whale

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Plant Reproduction
Some plants reproduce using the wind to carry pollen from one
flower to another.
Some plants reproduce using insects or birds to carry pollen
from one flower to another.
Why are insects attracted to flowers?
They are attracted by scent, colour and nectar.

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Excretion
Carbon dioxide is a waste product of respiration. What is the
other waste product? HINT! Breathe on a mirror.
Excretion is the process where an organism gets rid of waste
products that would otherwise cause it harm.
The waste products of respiration are carbon dioxide and
water.
Breathe through a tube into
a beaker of limewater. What
do you observe?
What happened to the limewater? It went milky.
What does this tell you?
There is more carbon dioxide in the air we breathe out than the
air we breathe in.

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Exercise 6: Removing Waste
1. What do we call the process that remove waste
products from an organism?
2. What are the waste products of respiration?
3. How do we remove carbon dioxide from our body?
4. What would happen if we did not remove this carbon
dioxide?
Excretion.
Water and carbon dioxide.
We breathe it out.
It would poison our bodies and eventually kill us.

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Nutrition
CARNIVORES.
Animals eat food. Some animals eat other animals. What do we
call these types of animals?
Nutrition is the obtaining of food to keep an organism healthy.
Some animals eat
plants What do we call
these animals?
HERBIVORES.
Animals that eat plants
and animals are called
OMNIVORES.
Green plants make their own food using sunlight, water and
carbon dioxide. This process is called PHOTOSYNTHESIS.
A carnivore

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Exercise 7: Link the Word with the Description
Carnivore
Omnivore
Photosynthesis
Carbon dioxide
Herbivore
Plant-eating animals
Meat-eating animals
The gas needed by green
plants to make food
Animals that eat
meat and plants
The process by which green
plants make food using sunlight

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Exercise 8: Insert the Key Words
Animals must eat food to gain nutrition. Animals that
eat plants are called _________. Animals that eat
____ are called carnivores. Animals that eat meat
and plants are called _________.
Green plants gain nutrition by making their own food
using _______, water and oxygen. This process is
called _____________.
meat omnivores photosynthesis
herbivores sunlight
herbivores
meat
omnivores
sunlight
photosynthesis