After the ball has left the bat, and while it is traveling upward (at point p in the figure (figure 1) ), what is the direction of acceleration (figure 2) ? ignore air resistance.

during the motion of the ball the acceleration is due to gravity which is always downwards.

Explanation:

While ball is moving upwards after being hit by the bat then the net force on the ball is given as

so here the negative sign shows that direction of force is opposite to the direction of velocity which is downwards

so we have

so during the motion of the ball the acceleration is due to gravity which is always downwards.

b. latent learning (the word "latent" itself means something that exists but isn't obvious, only under certain conditions! )