Question

What is the combination of chemical reactions through which an organism builds up or breaks down material

Answer 1

Lets go thru the glycolysis reaction that happens in the cytosol of a typical cell of an organism.

Glucose is a 6-carbon pyranose, which is broken down into 2X 3-carbon pyruvates (catabolism).
Glucose is also build up into glycogen in the liver(anabolism). Im not going to go into details. It gets confusing.