If a plant cell is placed in a solution and the cell shrivels up, what type of solution was it placed in? How do you know?

1 Answer
Feb 20, 2018

Hypertonic

Explanation:

The solution was hypertonic.

The reason for this is the fact that the cell shriveled up. The shriveling was caused by water moving out of the cell.

This movement is likely caused by a disbalance in solutes between the cell and the surrounding, with the surrounding containing a higher concentration of solutes. Diffusion tries to balance this by moving water out of the cell, thus increasing the concentration inside and reducing the concentration outside.