Question

Which conclusion about the growth of new bacterial cells does the experiment support?
O Heat helps bacterial cells grow new bacterial cells faster.
New bacterial cells can only arise from preexisting bacterial cells.
The amount of available nutrients impacts the growth of new bacterial cells.
Growth of new bacterial cells depends only on the presence of nutrients.

Answer 1

Answer: New bacterial cells can only arise from preexisting bacterial cells.

Explanation:

Option A is wrong because when heat was applied, there was no new bacterial growth. Most likely because the heat killed the bacteria cells. Option C is also wrong as well the third trial had nutrients but no new bacteria cells grew.

Option D is wrong because in Trial 1, there were nutrients and yet no new cells were formed. This means that growth of new cells depends on more than nutrients alone.

This leaves option B as the correct answer which is proven by the lack of growth of new cells when there were no pre-existing ones in trial 3.