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Biology practical exam today. I don't mind practicals- they're not so bad. The only problem is that whilst waffling crap might work in English or Drama apparently making it up as you go along in Biology isn't the best idea (especially for practical assessments...). My usual technique of pretending I listened at the start and then picking up every available chemical, shoving it in a test tube and heating it up for a bit clearly wasn't going to work here.

Despite my best (I say best, if I'm honest they were more mediocre) efforts I still managed to muck it up. In true CCHS fashion I give you my personal metacognative plenary. Or...

...Reasons why I fail epically at biology practicals:

1) Bunsen burners. Having to light them with a match is bad enough, but add to that the fact that I have control over a methane tap and you can expect to see a small explosion. Plus burning of hair/clothes/fingers.

2) Putting me (or anyone as equally clumsy) in the proximity of hazardous and potentially lethal chemicals is like locking a 5 year old child in a room with Gary Glitter. No. Just no.

3) My lackadaisical (yes, I DID just use that word) attitude generally bodes well for Drama but when it comes measuring EXACTLY 1.25ml of -INSERT ENZYME NAME HERE- clearly causes problems. The end result tends to be a curiously odd smelling brown sludge at the bottom of a blackened test tube and a graph that looks like a stencil outline of sonic the hedgehog.

4) I am the only non medicine applicant in my class. This basically means that when I peer around the classroom during such practicals I am met with a host of calm and professional looking faces who are ALL doing something entirely different from me. They have also managed to bring a pencil, ruler, pen, rubber, calculator, thermometer and pH probe. Well MAYBE I'm exaggerating slightly, but I still always manage to forget something and end up having to use the edge of my calculator as a ruler....

5) Tables confuse me. Especially ones that require you to know the units of anything other than time. (I'm preeeeetty sure it's measured in seconds....)

6) My brain tends to think in weird ways. E.g when I'm MEANT to be thinking: 'the overall change in pH clearly shows that the effect of temperature is...' all that will be running through my mind is: 'nanananananananananananananana BATMAN! BATMAN!'

7) I have a concentration span of approximately 6 seconds. After this time I will start doodling on my test paper/ playing with the pipettes/ trying to stop the stopwatch on exact seconds whilst my Biology teacher looks on in horror at what can only be described as the devolution of the species. As a result of this, I tend to skim read the questions/instructions and only discover AFTERWARDS what we were meant to be doing...

8) For me, the best possible outcome of an experiment is one that leaves you with a load of test tubes in a variety of attractive colours, not one that shows a positive correlation between the effects of temperature and the rate of enzyme activity. However, 'they were all different colours' (for some absurd reason) apparently doesn't count as a valid conclusion.

9) Science goggles+ me= FAIL.

10) Generally speaking, when you heat stuff up in a beaker of boiling water, it tends to get HOT. In addition, if you attempt to extract said 'stuff' from said beaker with your bare hands it is extremely likely that you will burn your fingers. Therefore it makes sense to use the tongs provided. My failure both to notice these tongs and to consider the possibility that hot stuff is HOT is an example of not only my ineptitude but also of how unobservant I am. Wins all round.

In conclusion, by examining the data given in blog post A, we can clearly see that Kathryn is a bit of an idiot when it comes to Biology, and that she should on no account be given an opportunity to repeat the investigation lest she burns down the school.