cells and ribosomes

Question

A cell with a predominance of free ribosomes is most likely?

please explain answer.

Answer 1

A cell with an abundance of free ribosomes is most likely producing primarily cytoplasmic proteins.

The most likely single answer to this question in particular is that this cell is a prokaryotic cell (bacteria), which lack membrane-bound organelles and rely entirely on free ribosomes to function.

Another option is that this cell is an unspecialized eukaryotic cell, such as resting lymphocytes in animals with white blood cells, which require enzymes and structural components within their own cytoplasm to maintain basic cellular metabolism.