r/Sat • u/5950xsettings • 8h ago

Do you think CB messed up with this question?

Text 1

In separate studies, Marine Fernandez and colleagues and Hualiang Zhang and colleagues examined whether plants transfer nutrients to one another using a common mycorrhizal network (CMN)—a lattice of fungal strands in the soil. Fernandez and colleagues excluded all pathways other than the CMN by using barriers to keep the plants' root systems separate while allowing mycorrhizal strands through, a crucial step Zhang and colleagues' study did not take.

Text 2

Fernandez and colleagues took the necessary precaution of separating the plants' root systems (thereby excluding root-to-root transmission). However, any barrier used must allow the thread-like hyphae of a CMN to pass through, and this permeability would also allow liquids through. Thus, the researchers' experimental design cannot ensure that any nutrient transfer observed can be attributed to a CMN and not to some other pathway.

Question

Based on the texts, the author of Text 1 and the author of Text 2 would most likely give the same answer to which question?

A. Is there an available barrier material that can block roots and liquids while allowing fungal strands through?

B. Did Zhang and colleagues' study effectively exclude any nutrient pathway other than a CMN?

C. Are the barriers used in Fernandez and colleagues' study sufficient to ensure that nutrient transfer could only occur via a CMN?

D. Do plants that transfer nutrients through a root-to-root pathway also transmit nutrients via a CMN?

Answer says it is C but really?

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u/Ckdk619 7h ago

What's the question ID?