The teacher instructed a student to place a healthy potted shoe flower plant in a dark room for 24 hours prior to an experiment on photosynthesis. The purpose of placing it in a dark room is
To destarch the leaves
This experiment is carried out to test the factors that affect the process of photosynthesis. The plant was placed in the dark room to destarch the leaves. In the absence of light, plants cannot photosynthesize, hence starch is not produced. So whatever starch was stored in the leaves, gets used up and leaves become destarched. After destarching, this plant can be used to test if the light has an effect on photosynthesis.