Update - 19/04/2020 Hey guys, this will be a bit of a short (my version of short, hehe) update on how the first week went. So unfortunately I messed up the time for the toni jordon's live stream and didn't make it, which was extremely disappointing! They did record it, but since it was such a large file it buffers every five seconds so it wasn't watchable. So along with missing the live stream, there were other bad and good things that went on this week. I'll get the bad stuff out of the way first, then end on a high note.
RantI did my chem SAC this week. Lets just say I cried, accepted defeat, and have now lowered my expectations in chem. That SAC was an utter mess. I had no idea what to do because the writing of the questions, spaces, and just everything being all over the place made it hard to do. To tell you what I mean, I need to start with what was originally planned for the SAC. It was originally suppose to be where I went in, did two experiments, got results, answered some questions related to the experiments, and other not related questions. That's fine. But with our friend covid, we weren't allowed to come in and do those experiments, so our teachers had to adjust. IT WAS A MESS. The original log sheet had second hand data but also areas for us to make our own observations on two youtube videos that had barely any info which I needed to fill out the sheets. Here the the two videos,
<Vid One> ,
<Vid Two> , and if you watched them, you can tell that they weren't super helpful to give results.... So moving on, they wanted us too "copy" down the second hand data given into the SAC question booklet, (they phrased this really weird), and then didn't tell us if we needed to answer the questions based on which results..... Are you still with me on this confusing mess. Oh, there was also a section where we needed to do a hazard check, and first it appeared to say we needed to fill it out by going to the GHS website, and it had a link. So I hand typed it in and it didn't work. I emailed my teacher and asked for a working link. And wait for it.... It turns out I didn't need the link as I didn't need to fill that hazard thing out, so helpful. They also wanted me to input the MSDS date, and guess what, IT WASN'T there, so guess who is going to loss a mark, just for that! Okay, moving on to all the other messed up shit. There was a FOUR mark questions all to do with environmental issues about the production of hydrogen, and there was no space. No lines, and the gap in the page between the environmental question and the next one was 4 cm....... So I squeezed my answer in there. Now the rest were pretty reasonable questions, however they had the oddest wording I have even seen, which is a theme in this SAC. There was a question asking me to "account" for the substance on a charged lead acid battery. Now, as you other chem nerds may know, when a lead acid battery has discharged, it leaves behind PbSO4 on the electrodes and it allows the battery to recharge. So, I wonder if they made a mistake with the whole charged thing, as that wouldn't have PbSO4, but lead oxide, so I just winged the answer... Last thing I swear, but they wanted me to draw two galvanic cells, the lead acid battery one, and the electrolysis of water (we didn't even cover this in class...), and I was kinda stumped, as normally you do the two separate beakers and blah blah blah, but this experiment was all in one beaker so that was a tad confusing, and I have never drawn a diagram on electrolysis before... and it was 3 marks. I'm just going to stop there, I could go on, but i'm not. This SAC is out of 50 and worth 8 percent of my study score. I spoke to others and they thought it was a mess too. I'm hoping that this means it will be moderated up, but it's not looking positive for my mark. I love chem, it is my favourite subject, I studied so hard, and honestly, nothing could have prepared me for the disaster.
Okay so to end on two positive notes. I got my licenses back!!! I was approved medically to drive on the road again last Wednesday, and I hit the roads friday. I now have 97 hours which is awesome, and I can't wait to do more. I also got my food studies SAC back from early in the week, and it was 49/50!!! I was so happy about that and worried myself over it for nothing. It also got moderated up too 25/25, since you can't have half marks, so technically 100%
. I am now just waiting on the food studies SAC I did last week, and my English SAC from last term, which they said they would release this friday. So, this week I am going to enjoy my only week off SACs, being my last week of 17, and essentially being up to date with my work. That's all for this week fokes! I'm going to have a pity party with some chocolate and my cats.