Question

During the lab, Professor Olson had 3 pieces of potato that were the same mass. She placed one piece in pure water with no salt. What would you expect the mass of the potato to be after an hour?

a) Increased due to osmosis
b) Decreased due to osmosis
c) Stayed the same
d) Varied based on temperature

Answer 1

When a piece of potato is placed in pure water with no salt, the mass of the potato would stay the same after an hour due to equal osmotic pressure on both sides.

Step-by-step explanation:

When a piece of potato is placed in pure water with no salt, the osmotic pressure on both sides of the potato would be equal. Osmotic pressure is the force with which water moves across a semipermeable membrane. In this case, since the concentration of solute is the same on both sides, there would be no net movement of water into or out of the potato. Therefore, the mass of the potato would stay the same after an hour.

Answer 2

The mass of the potato should increase due to water moving into the hypertonic cells of the potato by osmosis, causing the cells to swell.

The right answer is a) Increased due to osmosis

Step-by-step explanation:

The question involves understanding the process of osmosis, which is a biology concept related to the movement of water across a semi-permeable membrane. If Professor Olson placed a piece of potato in pure water with no salt, we would expect the mass of the potato to increase due to osmosis.

This is because the cell sap in the vacuoles of potato cells contains dissolved solutes, making it a hypertonic solution relative to the pure water outside.

Therefore, water would move from an area of lower solute concentration (the pure water) to an area of higher solute concentration (inside the potato cells) to balance the solute concentrations on both sides of the cell membrane.

The potato cells would take in water, swell, and the overall mass of the potato would increase.

The right answer is a) Increased due to osmosis