Skeleton and Joints

A ligament ties adjoining bones together. A retinaculum is a band of connective tissue that holds a group of tendons in place, e.g. at the wrist and ankle.

The central canal (or Haversian canal) of an osteon houses blood vessels.

It is just superior to the cricoid cartilage, inferior to the mandible and superficial to the pharynx, also known as the lingual (tongue) bone.

Choice B refers to carpals and tarsals. Choices C and D include metacarpals and metatarsals.

“Abduct” is to take away (from the midline).

The radius and ulna are freely moving at the elbow joint.

The suffix “-blast” refers to an immature cell. In this case it develops into an osteocyte after it has secreted bone matrix around itself.

The frontal bone and all cranial bone are “flat”. Choices A and B are long bones, while the fabella is a sesamoid bone in the tendon of the gastrocnemius muscle.

“Hypo-” refers to below (or inferior to), while “chondral” refers to cartilage – specifically the costal cartilages that join ribs 7 to 10 to the sternum. Hypochondriac refers to the abdomen immediately inferior to the rib cage. Choices C and D are nonsense. While choice A is true in layman’s terms, we are dealing with anatomical terminology here.

Pronation occurs when the radius is moved from a position parallel to the ulna to one where it crosses over the ulna, and supination is the return motion (may be thought of as the action we perform when turning off a wall-mounted tap).