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Read Practice Experiment

Absorption

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What this model shows

The views through the eyepiece are drawings of a stained slice across a mammal’s ileum, not photos of a real slide. Your string is measured on these drawings, taking the ×100 view as 1.8 mm across. Real villi differ in height and shape, so a real slide gives a different ratio.

The string measures an outline in one thin slice: a length, not an area, and not how fast food is absorbed.

Reduce motion (on in your system settings)

Equipment

small intestine, cut openintestine

prepared slidesslides

microscope

Setting up the bench…

Step 1 of 13 · Set up the microscope

Predict

Under a microscope, you will lay a string along the folded inner edge of the small intestine and compare it with a straight line.Take a short part of the folded inner edge and straighten it out. How many times longer would it be than the straight line between its ends?

Your measurements will appear here in a table.

Equipment

Box of prepared slides

An open box of prepared slides of animal tissues; the ileum slide lies in the front slot. Its section is a ring: a slice across a tube looks like a ring.

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Cambridge IGCSE Biology 0610 (2026–2028) · for pupils aged 14–16 and their teachers.

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