Starches are used by plants for energy storage.

• A. Structural component of cell walls
• B. Enzymatic activity
• C. Genetic information storage
• D. Energy storage

Answer: (D)

Plants store energy in the form of starch, a polymer of glucose that accumulates in plastids as starch granules to serve as an energy reserve. This allows the plant to mobilize glucose and generate energy when photosynthesis isn’t producing sugar, such as during the night or in non-photosynthetic tissues. Starch is not used for building cell walls (that role belongs to cellulose), nor is it involved in enzymatic activity (enzymes are proteins), nor in storing genetic information (DNA stores that). So the concept being tested is that starch functions as energy storage, making energy storage the best answer.