student places living cell into a drop of liquid containing a 5% sugar solution. After 30 mins the student notices that the liquid contains less than 5% sugar. explain what had happened

If a living cell was placed in a sugar solution, it would cause outward osmosis to occur. The cell would then shrink as it lost water to the outside environment. This would occur because the sugar solution outside the cell would be hypertonic (have more solutes) relative to the inside of the cell. There would be a gradient between the inside of the cell and the outside environment. Osmosis is the movement of water molecules from high to low concentration. Therefore, the cell would lose water and it would dehydrate.