Food & Cooking · Unit 2

Fruit and Vegetables

Growing, picking and eating plants

The culinary categories fruit and vegetable do not match the botanical ones, and both are useful for different purposes - which is why a tomato can honestly be called either.

The unit covers what botanically counts as a fruit, which plant parts we eat, seasons and harvest, growing your own, and why variety of colour on a plate is a reasonable proxy for variety of nutrients.

This unit breaks down into 19 short steps and 112 questions, starting at difficulty 1 and building to 2. Below you can see exactly what it covers, how the path is structured, and worked examples with explanations.

Steps
19
Questions
112
Difficulty
1-2

What this unit covers

  • Seasons and Harvest
  • Growing Your Own
  • What Is a Fruit
  • Parts We Eat
  • Colours on the Plate

Where this fits

Early and self-contained. Connects to Biology's Plant Biology.

Where people slip

Botanically a fruit contains seeds and develops from a flower, which makes cucumbers, peppers and pumpkins fruits. The kitchen sorts by sweetness instead, and both systems are correct on their own terms.

How the unit is structured

Fruit and Vegetables runs as 19 short steps that unlock in order. 14 are practice rounds and 5 are challenge rounds that pull together everything before them. Questions start at difficulty 1 and climb to 2 as you progress.

Step 1 · easierStep 19 · harder

Challenge rounds

Example questions

30 real questions from this unit, with the answer and the reason behind it, grouped by what they practise. There are 112 in the unit altogether.

Colours on the Plate

  • Choose all that applyLevel 1

    1. Which fruits are usually red when ripe? Pick all that apply.

    • Strawberrycorrect
    • Cherrycorrect
    • Raspberrycorrect
    • Kiwi flesh

    Strawberries, cherries and raspberries all turn red.

  • Fact or fibLevel 1

    2. Frozen vegetables are always less nutritious than fresh ones.

    Answer: False

    False. Freezing soon after picking preserves nutrients well, sometimes better than long storage.

  • Multiple choiceLevel 1

    3. Which vegetable is usually bright green and shaped like a tiny tree?

    • Broccolicorrect
    • Beetroot
    • Sweetcorn
    • Aubergine

    Broccoli looks like a small tree with a thick stalk.

  • Odd one outLevel 1

    4. Which of these is NOT usually green?

    • Carrotcorrect
    • Broccoli
    • Spinach
    • Cucumber

    A carrot is orange, while the others are green vegetables.

  • True or falseLevel 1

    5. Tomatoes turn from green to red as they ripen.

    Answer: True

    True. Ripening changes both colour and taste.

  • Type the answerLevel 1

    6. What colour is a ripe banana?

    Answer: yellow

    Bananas turn yellow when they are ready to eat.

Growing Your Own

  • Choose all that applyLevel 1

    7. Which help a garden grow well? Pick all that apply.

    • Regular wateringcorrect
    • Removing weedscorrect
    • Healthy soilcorrect
    • Covering plants so no light reaches them

    Watering, weeding and good soil all help.

  • Fill the blankLevel 1

    8. Plants take in water through their ____.

    • rootscorrect
    • petals
    • seeds
    • fruit

    Roots draw water up from the soil.

  • Match the pairsLevel 1

    9. Match each plant part to its job.

    Answer: Root = Takes in water; Leaf = Catches sunlight; Flower = Makes seeds; Stem = Holds the plant up

    Each part of a plant does a different job.

  • Multiple choiceLevel 1

    10. Why do gardeners pull out weeds?

    • Weeds take water and light from the cropcorrect
    • Weeds are poisonous to soil
    • Weeds attract rain
    • There is no reason

    Weeds take water, light and nutrients that the crop needs.

  • True or falseLevel 1

    11. You can grow herbs like basil in a pot on a windowsill.

    Answer: True

    True. Many herbs need only a sunny spot and water.

  • Build the sentenceLevel 2

    12. Build a sentence about gardening.

    Answer: Compost feeds the soil and helps plants grow

    Compost feeds the soil and helps plants grow.

Parts We Eat

  • Build the sentenceLevel 1

    13. Build a sentence about vegetables.

    Answer: Carrots grow under the soil as roots

    Carrots grow under the soil as roots.

  • Choose all that applyLevel 1

    14. Which vegetables grow underground? Pick all that apply.

    • Carrotcorrect
    • Potatocorrect
    • Onioncorrect
    • Lettuce

    Carrots, potatoes and onions all grow below the soil.

  • Multiple choiceLevel 1

    15. Which part of a lettuce do we eat?

    • The leavescorrect
    • The roots
    • The seeds
    • The stem only

    Lettuce leaves are the part we put in salads.

  • Sort into groupsLevel 1

    16. Sort each vegetable by whether it grows above or below the ground.

    Answer: Potato = Below the ground; Carrot = Below the ground; Lettuce = Above the ground; Tomato = Above the ground

    Some vegetables are roots and some grow in the air.

  • True or falseLevel 1

    17. We eat the flower of the broccoli plant.

    Answer: True

    True. Broccoli heads are tight bunches of flower buds.

  • Type the answerLevel 1

    18. Which vegetable is a root that is usually orange?

    Answer: carrot

    Carrots grow underground as roots.

Seasons and Harvest

  • Choose all that applyLevel 1

    19. What do growing plants need? Pick all that apply.

    • Watercorrect
    • Lightcorrect
    • Nutrients in the soilcorrect
    • Loud music

    Water, light and soil nutrients are all needed.

  • Multiple choiceLevel 1

    20. Why do farmers plant at particular times of year?

    • Crops need the right warmth and lightcorrect
    • Because shops ask them to
    • Seeds only exist in spring
    • There is no reason

    Crops need the right warmth and daylight, which come at certain seasons.

  • Put in orderLevel 1

    21. Put these stages of growing a vegetable in order.

    Answer: Plant a seed -> Water it -> The plant grows -> Harvest the vegetable

    Plant, water, grow, harvest.

  • True or falseLevel 1

    22. Plants need water, light and warmth to grow.

    Answer: True

    True. Without any one of them, growth stops.

  • Type the answerLevel 1

    23. What do farmers put in the ground to start growing a plant?

    Answer: seed

    A seed grows into a new plant.

  • Fill the blankLevel 2

    24. Growing different crops in a field each year is called crop ____.

    • rotationcorrect
    • deletion
    • freezing
    • drying

    Rotation protects soil and breaks pest cycles.

What Is a Fruit

  • Choose all that applyLevel 1

    25. Which of these have seeds inside? Pick all that apply.

    • Applecorrect
    • Meloncorrect
    • Tomatocorrect
    • Lettuce leaf

    Apples, melons and tomatoes all hold seeds.

  • Fact or fibLevel 1

    26. All fruits are sweet.

    Answer: False

    False. Lemons and cranberries are fruits but very sour.

  • Multiple choiceLevel 1

    27. What do most fruits have inside them?

    • Seedscorrect
    • Bones
    • Sand
    • Metal

    Fruits hold the seeds of the plant they came from.

  • Picture questionLevel 1

    28. 🍎 Which fruit is shown here?

    • An applecorrect
    • A cabbage
    • A potato
    • An onion

    An apple grows on a tree and holds small brown pips.

  • Put in orderLevel 1

    29. Put the stages of a fruit forming in order.

    Answer: A flower opens -> An insect pollinates it -> A small fruit begins to swell -> The fruit ripens

    Flower, pollination, fruit swells, ripening.

  • Sort into groupsLevel 2

    30. Sort each fruit by whether it ripens after picking.

    Answer: Banana = Ripens after picking; Avocado = Ripens after picking; Grape = Does not ripen after picking; Strawberry = Does not ripen after picking

    Climacteric fruits keep ripening, non-climacteric ones do not improve.

Where these questions come from. Each unit starts as a plan of the concepts it should cover and the difficulty it should span. Questions are written against that plan with AI assistance, then checked by a validator that rejects anything without a single defensible answer, an explanation, or plausible wrong options. How we write questions sets out the whole process, and corrections are fixed in the bank and reach the site and the app the same day.

How you practise

This unit mixes 12 different question formats, so you are recalling and applying rather than recognising the same layout every time.

  • Build the sentence
  • Choose all that apply
  • Fact or fib
  • Fill the blank
  • Match the pairs
  • Multiple choice
  • Odd one out
  • Picture question
  • Put in order
  • Sort into groups
  • True or false
  • Type the answer

Practise Fruit and Vegetables

112 questions across 19 steps. Start with step one and crawl at your own pace.

Play this unit

Read about Fruit and Vegetables

Explainers from our blog on what this unit covers. Each one ends with real questions from the bank.

More units in Food & Cooking

See all 18 units in Food & Cooking