A very fine needle can pierce a plasma membrane without bursting the cell because the membrane:

1. The membrane is fairly rigid and can burst if penetrated or if a cell takes in too much water. 2. Its mosaic nature nonetheless leaves it mobile in the plane of the sheet. 3. Because of that mosaic nature, a very fine needle can easily penetrate a plasma membrane without causing it to burst. 4. The membrane will flow and self-seal when the needle is extracted. 5. It is explicitly not like a balloon that expands and contracts, which rules out option C. _Source: OpenStax Biology for AP(R) Courses (CC BY 4.0), Ch 5 'Structure and Function of Plasma Membranes', sections 5.1-5.4_