I've just realised that a fair percentage of posts on this blog have to do with Chemistry. It's a great subject, but it's not my life - it's my teachers who are all wonderful blog-fodder (a wonderful word). And in saying that, I have another fantastic few stories from my Chemistry lesson today.
Number the firstestmostest. We got the results of the practical tests that we did the week before. Mine was pretty good, except for a stupid mistake in an ionic equation that got me two (!) marks off, but overall there were some VERY common errors, again in the ionic equations section, that really shouldn't have been made. Writing "bubbles" in the observations instead of "a colourless, odourless gas" was far too common, even after my teacher drumming it into our skulls from day one. She was getting rather steamed up because of this. Also, quite a few people were obviously not checking their data sheets, because she was getting annoyed at people who didn't write the correct colour of precipitates, and the like.
She was very irritated with us.
"We'll try and trick you with the observations," she was saying. "You have to check your data sheet, because something will be coloured, or something will be different to what you are expecting. We will try and trick you!" Getting more heated, climaxing with: "We don't WANT you to succeed!"
Unbeknownst to her, a tour group with a whole lot of potential newbies was passing by just in time to hear her say, loudly, "We don't WANT you to succeed!" Oops.
Someone told her this a few minutes later. In her words, she told me she's now "up shit creek", but I know nothing more. I'll have to report back if there is any more news. But we were all cracking up, and I told her that that was definitely going on the blog (i.e. here). I'll probably send her the link to this.
The secondestmostest point. My Chemistry teacher has a number of classes in the lower years (just for general science), and was marking the topic test for one of these classes after she finished going off at us. The test was on human biology, by the sounds of things, and the extended answer question, for 10 marks, was: Adam ate a cheeseburger. Explain how the three essential nutrients, protein, carbohydrates and lipids get to Adam's circulatory system via his digestive system. The kid wrote:
Adam eats the cheeseburger. The proteins are digested and give him the amino acids that his body cannot produce. These go to his thighs, because his legs need to support and move his big body around.
The thing on carbohydrates was nothing memorable. On lipids, however, the kid wrote:
The lipids Adam eats are used for insulation. Adam needs this insulation, as he used his mother's money to pay for the cheeseburger, so it is very likely that he will be sleeping outside tonight.
I can't believe the kid wrote this! He was obviously deadly serious, which is the sad thing...
He finished his test with "Tags: osmosis, diffusion". My teacher then wrote #wrong.
The kid ended up getting 1 mark out of 10 for this extended response (he got a single thing right). Wow.
The lastestmostest point. I was doing a worksheet on ionic equations yesterday (prompted no doubt by what we didn't do in the practical), and finished said worksheet in today's lesson. One question was "write the species involved, ionic equation and observations when solutions of hydrochloric and acetic acid are mixed". The answer, for all you interested parties, as I got it, was H+, Cl-, and CH3COO- (Google blogs has no superscript, so I can't put the charges correctly). The guy behind me then put up his hand, and asked the teacher for help. When my teacher came over to work it out with him, I heard him say midway through the discussion "Is acetic acid an acid or a base?"
Oh my.
My friend and I looked at each other with identical 'is this guy for real?' expressions on our faces. Doesn't the 'acid' bit in 'acetic acid' kinda sorta give it away?
We'll see how he does in the next test (ironically, on acids and bases). This is the same guy who famously misspelt his last name, Ng, as Mg on one of his previous Chemistry tests, and when the teacher picked him up on it (read: teased him in front of the class - we were all laughing, including him), even more famously retorted "Well, at least I know what mercury is!"
Dear me.
Well, that's all for tonight, methinks. This, again, was meant to be posted last night, but I'm glad I didn't as I got the chance to put that last story in.
I'll try and put some more stories from my other subjects up soon!
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