The ‘xylem’ in plants is responsible mainly for

The correct answer is C) Transportation of water. Xylem is the vascular tissue that carries water and dissolved minerals upward from the roots to the leaves. It is made of dead, lignified cells, tracheids and vessel elements, which form continuous water-conducting channels. Water moves through it mainly by the cohesion-tension mechanism, driven by transpiration pull from the leaves.

• A (food): Food, in the form of sucrose, is carried by phloem, not xylem. Phloem translocates from source to sink, in both directions.
• B (amino acids): Amino acids are moved mainly through phloem. Xylem carries some nitrogen compounds, but that is a minor role and not its main function.
• D (oxygen): Oxygen moves by diffusion through stomata and lenticels. Vascular tissue plays no major part in it.
• E (none/more than one): Wrong, because C is clearly correct.

This links to the Plant Physiology and Botany sections of the Science syllabus, and to Mains questions on water-use efficiency and transpiration in agriculture.

Trap: Aspirants often pick A or B because they read "vascular tissue" as meaning "everything transported." Remember the split: xylem for water and minerals, phloem for food and amino acids.