Biology 9700 · AS & A Level
Antibodies and vaccination
77 practice questions on Antibodies and vaccination, with worked solutions and instant marking.
Tuberculosis (TB), influenza and polio are all examples of infectious diseases.
Feb/March 2023
The HIV virus causes disease by infecting and destroying T-helper cells. As a result, AIDS develops and the body is unable to mount an effective immune response. Which parts of the immune system are made less effectively when AIDS develops?
Feb/March 2025
Vaccination programmes are commonly used to limit the spread of infectious diseases.
Feb/March 2025
The disease smallpox has been eradicated through a global vaccination programme. Which group of reasons correctly identifies the difficulties involved in planning vaccination programmes to eradicate other diseases?
May/June 2011
Measles is a widespread viral infection. A vaccine for measles has been available since the 1960s. Vaccination programmes exist for many diseases, including measles. Babies are born with passive immunity to measles, so vaccination is not administered during the first few months after birth.
May/June 2011
To help prevent a disease, dead bacteria can be injected into the body. What kind of immune response is generated?
May/June 2012
Malaria is an illness caused by the parasite Plasmodium. This parasite has a complicated life cycle, and part of that cycle takes place in the gut of the female mosquito, which transmits the disease. Fig. 5.1 illustrates part of the malarial parasite’s life cycle. In vaccine trials for malaria, the parasites were destroyed using radioactivity and then injected into volunteers. This approach gave some protection against malaria.
May/June 2012
Explain how the virus that causes measles is passed on.
May/June 2013
Which kind of immunity develops when an infant receives antibodies by drinking its mother’s milk?
May/June 2014
B-lymphocytes respond to the presence of a non-self antigen by dividing, as illustrated in Fig. 4.1.
May/June 2014
B-lymphocytes display antibodies on their outer membrane. When B-lymphocytes differentiate into plasma cells, they release antibodies. Fig. 5.1 illustrates how the enzyme papain digests an antibody to produce three fragments.
May/June 2014
Vaccination can give protection against the infectious disease tuberculosis (TB).
May/June 2014
What action does an antigen-activated B-lymphocyte carry out?
May/June 2015
What is meant by natural passive immunity?
May/June 2015
Pathogens can gain entry to the body in several different ways, such as across the gas exchange surfaces. The body possesses a number of defence systems that help prevent pathogens entering and spreading through the body. Fig. 2.1 shows an electron micrograph of a transverse section through the lining of a bronchiole.
May/June 2015
Fig. 3.1 is an electron micrograph showing a B-lymphocyte known as a plasma cell. Plasma cells release antibody molecules.
May/June 2015
The graph illustrates the antibody response after a person is injected first with antigen X and then, at a later time, with antigens X and Y. Which curve represents the primary response to antigen Y?
May/June 2016
Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a disorder affecting the joints in the human body.
May/June 2016
Which form of new vaccine production would matter most in the effort to eradicate measles in developing countries?
May/June 2017
Fig. 3.1 is a diagram showing the structure of an antibody molecule.
May/June 2017
Some pathogenic bacteria release toxins that can be chemically modified so that they become harmless. These harmless toxins are known as toxoids. Toxoids are included in vaccines to protect against certain infectious diseases. Describe the response of the immune system to the injection of a toxoid.
May/June 2018
Which phrase describes artificial active immunity?
May/June 2019
Antibody molecules are proteins that exhibit primary structure, secondary structure, tertiary structure and quaternary structure. Fig. 1.1 presents a ribbon diagram of an antibody molecule.
May/June 2019
Which row gives the correct description of the type of immunity acquired by being injected with an antitoxin?
May/June 2020
The vaccine used to control tuberculosis (TB) is called Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG). It contains live bacteria that have been chosen so that they do not cause illness in humans. Fig. 5.1 shows a macrophage as it engulfs the bacteria in the vaccine.
May/June 2020
Which events lead to a person developing actively acquired immunity?
May/June 2021
Which statement best accounts for why a measles vaccination programme using only one dose has not yet removed the disease?
May/June 2021
Considerable progress was achieved in cutting the number of malaria cases between 2000 and 2015.
May/June 2021
The diseases myasthenia gravis (MG) and HIV/AIDS are both disorders of the immune system.
May/June 2021
During immune responses, B-lymphocytes are switched on and develop into plasma cells. Fig. 2.1 shows a drawing of a plasma cell based on a transmission electron micrograph.
May/June 2022
Having malaria repeatedly leads to stronger immunity against malaria. Which kind of immunity causes this stronger immunity?
May/June 2023
A vaccination programme is successful when it creates a level of immunity in which most individuals in a population are protected. Several factors can influence how successful a vaccination programme is. Which row correctly identifies the factors that can influence how successful a vaccination programme is?
May/June 2023
Monoclonal antibodies are made by means of the hybridoma method. What is taken out of a mouse's spleen in order to make monoclonal antibodies?
May/June 2023
Whooping cough is a very contagious illness of the gas exchange system, caused by the bacterium Bordetella pertussis. Which method gives infants protection against whooping cough and lowers the likelihood of developing this disease later?
May/June 2024
The diagram illustrates one stage in the production of monoclonal antibodies. $X$ + cancer cells → hybridoma cells What does $X$ represent?
May/June 2024
Influenza is a contagious disease caused by a virus. A person can catch influenza more than once. Which statements give the reasons why influenza can be caught more than once?
May/June 2024
Antibodies are made by plasma cells. Fig. 6.1 shows antigens attached to the antigen-binding sites of an antibody molecule.
May/June 2024
Which statements show why vaccination has not eradicated cholera?
May/June 2025
There is a worldwide shortage of blood for transfusions. In the laboratory, researchers can grow bone marrow stem cells to produce red blood cells that may be used as an artificial blood product. Rather than taking them directly from bone marrow, the researchers obtain bone marrow stem cells that are present in very small amounts in blood. • Antibodies specific to bone marrow stem cells are fixed to tiny magnetic beads. • The beads are mixed into a blood sample. • An electric field is then used to keep the beads stationary so that the bone marrow stem cells can be collected.
May/June 2025
Monoclonal antibodies may be used to treat disease.
May/June 2025
Fig. 4.1 shows an incomplete flow chart of several events in the primary immune response that take place after a person receives a vaccine.
Oct/Nov 2010
Outline the roles of the T-lymphocytes and B-lymphocytes during a primary immune response.
Oct/Nov 2010
What occurs when dead bacteria are injected into people?
Oct/Nov 2012
To stop a disease, dead bacteria can be injected into the body. Which type of immune response is generated?
Oct/Nov 2012
The graph illustrates the primary and secondary immune system responses to antigens. What are responses X and Y?
Oct/Nov 2012
Why has it been hard to develop an effective vaccine against malaria?
Oct/Nov 2012
Which statement correctly describes B-lymphocytes?
Oct/Nov 2013
Nicotine present in cigarette smoke is extremely addictive. A nicotine vaccine has been developed in an attempt to lessen the effects of addiction. The vaccine triggers an immune response so that antibodies are produced which attach to the nicotine molecule. Fig. 6.1 shows an antibody molecule.
Oct/Nov 2013
Fig. 1.1 shows the structure of an antibody molecule.
Oct/Nov 2013
Which statements help to explain why cholera has not been eliminated by vaccination?
Oct/Nov 2014
Define disease.
Oct/Nov 2014
Cholera is an infectious disease that can infect both children and adults. Symptoms may appear very rapidly, within a few hours or after a few days. Table 4.1 gives the economic status of five countries, the number of cholera cases reported to the World Health Organization (WHO) across a five year period for each country, and each country's population in 2006 and in 2010.
Oct/Nov 2014
Measles is an infectious disease against which vaccines have been produced. The vaccine that is commonly used contains an attenuated, or weakened, form of the virus. The measles vaccine is usually given to children at about one year of age, with a booster dose when they are around four years old.
Oct/Nov 2014
What is meant by artificial passive immunity?
Oct/Nov 2015
The bacterium that causes tetanus releases a toxin which functions as an antigen. The graph shows the concentration of an antibody in the blood of two people, G and H. On day $0$, G was given antibodies to the tetanus toxin and H was given the tetanus vaccine. What would be the outcome after G and H were infected with the tetanus bacteria on day $20$?
Oct/Nov 2015
Activated B-lymphocytes called plasma cells secrete antibodies. Fig. 1.1 is a diagram of the cellular events involved in making a polypeptide in an antibody molecule (not drawn to scale).
Oct/Nov 2015
The graph illustrates the concentration of antibody in blood after vaccination and then a booster vaccination 28 days later. Which statements about how the antibody concentration changes are correct?
Oct/Nov 2016
Monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) have been used to treat some non-infectious diseases. MAbs can be engineered to attach to a protein on diseased cells, which leads to their destruction by cells of the person’s immune system.
Oct/Nov 2016
Measles is an extremely infectious disease.
Oct/Nov 2016
Which of these statements explain why some vaccines can be taken orally but the tuberculosis (TB) vaccine must be injected?
Oct/Nov 2017
The statements are about vaccination programmes for the diseases cholera, measles, smallpox and tuberculosis (TB). Which one of the statements is correct for TB?
Oct/Nov 2017
Smallpox was eliminated from the human population through a global prevention programme. Which kind of immunity was induced in people who were given treatment as part of this programme?
Oct/Nov 2017
Immune-system cells work to shield the body from infectious diseases.
Oct/Nov 2017
The graph illustrates the body’s response after being exposed to an antigen for the first and second time. What directly causes the rise in antibody production after the second exposure to antigens?
Oct/Nov 2018
Why has developing an effective vaccine for malaria been so difficult?
Oct/Nov 2018
In one West African country, a measles vaccination programme was started while a measles epidemic was occurring. Subsequently, it was discovered that vaccinated children were more likely to survive through childhood than unvaccinated children, even when there were no measles epidemics. The vaccine had provided the children with some defence against other pathogenic infections. Which statement could explain this additional protection?
Oct/Nov 2018
Whooping cough is a very infectious disease of the gas exchange system, caused by the bacterium $\text{Bordetella pertussis}$. Which method protects infants from whooping cough and lowers the likelihood of developing this disease later in life?
Oct/Nov 2018
Fig. 4.1 shows a photomicrograph of a transverse section of a tubular kidney structure formed from epithelial cells.
Oct/Nov 2018
The smallpox vaccination programme was a major achievement in medicine, and it led the World Health Organisation to declare in 1980 that the world was free of smallpox. Which statement most accurately shows why the smallpox vaccination programme was successful?
Oct/Nov 2019
The immune response following vaccination against a virus can be evaluated using three measurements: 1 the concentration of anti-virus antibody in the blood 2 the time taken for the antibody concentration to rise significantly after a booster vaccination 3 the number of virus-specific lymphocytes per $\text{cm}^3$ blood. What does this indicate about an individual’s immunity when the values for 1, 2 and 3 are all low ten years after vaccination?
Oct/Nov 2019
Which row gives the description of passive immunity?
Oct/Nov 2020
Why have vaccination programmes eliminated smallpox but not TB?
Oct/Nov 2020
Mutations in body cells can sometimes give rise to a tumour. Some tumours are cancerous.
Oct/Nov 2020
Cholera is an infectious disease that is caused by the bacterial pathogen Vibrio cholerae. V. cholerae secretes a toxin called choleragen. Choleragen is a protein molecule composed of six polypeptides (subunits).
Oct/Nov 2021
Scientists have made structures called virosomes for use in some vaccines. Virosomes do not cause disease. Fig. 4.1 shows a diagram of a cross-section through a virosome used in some vaccinations to provide protection against the virus responsible for influenza.
Oct/Nov 2022
The malarial pathogen, Plasmodium falciparum, enters red blood cells after infection of a person. After a period of time, each P. falciparum cell divides to produce daughter cells. Fig. 1.1 shows a cell of P. falciparum that is forming many daughter cells.
Oct/Nov 2023
Why does passive immunity persist for only a brief period?
Oct/Nov 2024