Water moving deeper into the root entirely through the cell walls and intercellular spaces, without ever crossing a cell membrane, follows which pathway?

1. The clue is water moving inward without ever crossing a cell membrane. 2. Such movement can use only the cell walls and the spaces between cells. 3. Option A (symplast pathway) routes water through cytoplasm and plasmodesmata, which means crossing membranes, a trap. 4. Option C (vacuolar pathway) also passes through the living cell contents, so it crosses membranes too. 5. Option D (phloem pathway) carries food, not the inward soil-to-xylem water route. 6. The route that stays in walls and spaces, skipping membranes, is the apoplast pathway. 7. So the answer is option B. _Source: Samacheer Kalvi (TN SCERT) Class 10 Science, Unit 14 Transportation in Plants and Circulation in Animals "Apoplast Pathway", p.209_