Final answer:
The sides of the nucleic acid ladder are made of sugar and phosphate, not nitrogenous bases, making the statement false.
Step-by-step explanation:
The assertion that the sides of the "ladder" that makes up a nucleic acid molecule are made of nitrogenous bases is false. The ladder analogy of a nucleic acid like DNA refers to the structure consisting of two long strands forming the backbone of the molecule, with the rungs of the ladder being the pairs of nitrogenous bases. The sides or the backbone of the nucleic acid molecule are composed of alternating phosphate groups and pentose sugars (deoxyribose in DNA and ribose in RNA). The nitrogenous bases, which include adenine (A), cytosine (C), guanine (G), and thymine (T) in DNA (or uracil (U) in RNA), are attached to this sugar-phosphate backbone and pair with complementary bases across the two strands, like the steps or rungs of a ladder held together by hydrogen bonds.