DEBUGGING
One item that I made a mistake on would be from the first summative assessment (SA) of the course. This would be in Part C of the said summative, wherein we were provided with a specific chemical equation. Going into further detail, this depicted fizz being produced after an Alka-Seltzer tablet was dissolved in water, due to sodium bicarbonate (NaHCO) and citric acid (H3C6H5O7) reacting with one another. Given this situation as well as other information, we were tasked with determining the limiting reactant in the experiment, how many grams of CO2 were released, and how many grams of the excess reactant remain after the limiting reactant is consumed completely.
Unfortunately, while answering that portion of the SA, I did not notice my teacher messaging the class regarding a correction in Part C, until the last few minutes of the test. In the provided correction, sodium bicarbonate, one of the reactants, was actually supposed to be written as NaHCO3, but the subscript was not present in the final version of the summative questionnaire. Upon finding out about this correction, I was not sure of what to do, as there was only little time left. Furthermore, I began to feel more stress, since the correction also meant that all my answers to Part C would change, due to the new limiting reactant being NaHCO3. Although I answered most of the items in Part C of the SA, I was unable to put an answer in the third item of Part C. To add to that, I made the mistake of retaining my answers that used the wrong reactant, because I was unable to see the correction or revise my answers in time.
Looking back at the problem now, if I took the correction into account, the nature of the solutions for each of the items in Part C would have been similar, but the values for such would have differed. Upon taking the time to resolve those items on my own time, I determined that the limiting reactant would be NaHCO3, the mass of CO2 was 0.524 g, and 0.238 g of H3C6H5O7 remained after the reaction.
These are my solutions upon resolving Part C!
This is for item 1!
These are for items 2 and 3!
Having said that, I was reminded that it is integral to stay calm whenever we encounter unexpected challenges or “bumps in the road.” Such can be said, since doing so prevents us from having a mental block, and feeling overwhelmed. Furthermore, making sure to constantly practice this will not only help me perform better in the current course, but also in my other subjects, and future career as well. Along with these, my experiences in the first SA reminded me to constantly be alert with regards to various announcements or updates in school, and other contexts. This is something that I should keep in mind, because if I am not wary of announcements made by my teacher in one of my courses, I may miss out on pertinent information that will help me in the long-run. Lastly, this particular summative also showed me the importance of attention to detail, as even the smallest of values can heavily affect my computations and outputs.
