Minnesota State Mortician Practice Exam

The primary distinction between interment and cremation lies in the methods of handling human remains. Interment refers specifically to the practice of burying the body in the ground or placing it in a mausoleum or other vault. This process involves the preservation of the body in its original form, allowing for a burial service, and is often associated with traditional funerary practices.

Cremation, on the other hand, is a process that reduces the body to ashes through high-temperature burning. This process alters the physical state of the body, creating cremated remains that can be kept in an urn, scattered, or buried, but does not involve burial in the conventional sense.

Understanding this fundamental difference helps clarify why the first choice is accurate, emphasizing that interment is related to burial while cremation involves the reduction of the body to ashes. The other options touch on various factors that are not essential to understanding the basic definitions of these practices, such as cost comparisons or service types, which do not define the methods themselves.