Florida Teacher Certification Examinations (FTCE) Subject Area Practice Test

What system in the human body is responsible for enabling movement?

1. Nervous system

2. Muscular system

3. Skeletal system

4. Circulatory system

The correct answer is: Muscular system

The muscular system is primarily responsible for enabling movement in the human body. Muscles are responsible for contracting and relaxing, which allows for the movement of various parts of the body, whether it be voluntary actions like walking and jumping or involuntary actions like breathing. When muscles contract, they pull on the skeletal system—the bones—to facilitate motion. This interaction between muscles and bones enables a range of movements essential for everyday activities. The muscular system works closely with the nervous and skeletal systems to achieve coordinated movement, but its direct role lies in the contraction and relaxation of muscle tissue. While the nervous system plays a critical role in signaling muscles to move and the skeletal system provides the framework for those movements, it is the muscular system that directly produces movement itself. The circulatory system, on the other hand, is involved in transporting blood and nutrients throughout the body, which indirectly supports movement but does not enable it directly.