AQA AS bio past paper

did this question got it wrong, probably stupid mistake i did but hey,

(ii) Describe and explain how you would expect the height to breadth ratio of an epithelial cell from a lung alveolus to differ from the height to breadth ratio of a milk-producing cell.

there was text for the question which said that the height to breadth ratio for the milk producing cell was 1.2:1

(ii) Ratio would be less/smaller;
Cell is thin / has large surface area / (adapted) for diffusion;
Accept converse. Must relate to concept of ratio.

i dont quite understand, is the ratio smaller because the height of the squamous epithelial is smaller so giving like.. (less than 1.2): 1

the ratio for the height of a squamous would be significantly small. can you have a ratio smaller than 1 eg: 0.02 : 1 ??

sorry if you dont quite understand me, i find it quite hard to explain myself sometimes! haha. cheers

Reply 1

corkskrew

the height to bredth ratio is the height io the cell divided by the bredth of it.
the height of the alveolus cel is smaller to give the short diffusion pathway.
you can have a ratio < 1 iff you flip it over, for example the height to width ratio of a person could be 1.5m/0.3m, giving a ratio of 5:1. But the width to height ratio is then 1:5, or simply 1 divided by 5, giving 0.2.