An oligosaccharide is made up of at least:

  • A. two saccharide units
  • B. ten saccharide units
  • C. three to ten saccharide units
  • D. more than ten saccharide units

Explanation

This is the option marked correct in the official UHS answer key, taking oligosaccharide in its broad sense of a few sugar units, beginning at two. Many textbooks instead reserve disaccharide for two units and define oligosaccharides as three to ten, which is why option (c) is such a strong distractor. Anything beyond about ten units is a polysaccharide.

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