In which of the following groups of organisms, is food material broken down outside the body and absorbed?

The correct answer is A, Yeast, mushroom, bread mould. All three are fungi that feed saprophytically: they release enzymes onto dead organic matter, digest it outside their bodies and then absorb the dissolved food.

This mode of nutrition is called saprotrophic nutrition. The fungus secretes digestive enzymes into its food, such as bread, rotting wood or a sugar solution, which break complex substances into simple ones that the fungal threads (hyphae) or cells can soak up. In this way fungi act as decomposers and return nutrients to the soil.

B is wrong: Amoeba engulfs its food and digests it inside a food vacuole, and green plants make their own food by photosynthesis.

C is wrong: Cuscuta, tapeworm and lice are parasites that take food from a living host, not saprophytes.

D is wrong: Paramecium and Amoeba digest food inside the body (holozoic nutrition), and Cuscuta is a parasite.

Exam tip: saprophytes (fungi, many bacteria) digest outside and absorb; holozoic organisms (Amoeba, humans) ingest and digest inside; parasites (Cuscuta, tapeworm) feed on a living host.