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Look at the sperm cell - OCR Gateway - GCSE Biology (Combined Science) - Question 2 - 2019 - Paper 8

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Look at the sperm cell. 0.006mm The eye can see objects 0.1mm. What minimum magnification will be needed before the eye can see the head of this sperm cell? A 0.1... show full transcript

Worked Solution & Example Answer:Look at the sperm cell - OCR Gateway - GCSE Biology (Combined Science) - Question 2 - 2019 - Paper 8

Step 1

What minimum magnification will be needed before the eye can see the head of this sperm cell?

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Answer

To determine the minimum magnification needed to see the sperm cell's head, we first need to compare the size of the sperm cell head to the smallest object visible to the human eye.

The sperm cell head measures 0.006 mm while the smallest visible object size is 0.1 mm. Therefore, we can calculate the required magnification using the following formula:

extMagnification=Size of object to be seenSize of smallest object visible ext{Magnification} = \frac{\text{Size of object to be seen}}{\text{Size of smallest object visible}}

Substituting in the values:

extMagnification=0.006 mm0.1 mm=0.06 ext{Magnification} = \frac{0.006 \text{ mm}}{0.1 \text{ mm}} = 0.06

To express this in magnification terms, we rewrite it as:

Magnification=10.0616.7×\text{Magnification} = \frac{1}{0.06} \approx 16.7×

Thus, the minimum magnification needed is around 16.7 times the original size, making the correct answer:

C

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