Managing+Impulsivity

//Sometimes we blurt out the first thing that comes to mind. Sometimes we lack an organized strategy for approaching a problem; sometimes we make immediate value judgments about an idea before fully understanding it. "Delay gratification-it is the essence of emotional self regulation."--Danial Goleman//
 * Managing Impulsivity**

In our "Acids and Bases" unit, one class Ms. Knowles taught us how to do titrations. We were then expected to do our own titrations, and to record our results to then determine the concentration of NaOH solution used.

My partner and I were so excited to do the titrations that we weren't as careful as we should have been, which ended not so successfully for us. Instead of really carefully droping the NaOH into the HCl, and slowing down and using water to swirl the solution in the flask when we were close to neutralizing the acid, we went a bit too fast for all three of our trials at first. We were so excited to neutralize the solution, and to see the solution turn pink, that we actually "over-titrated" the solution all three times.

We didn't realize this until after we calculated the concentration of NaOH, and Ms. Knowles told us that our values were too high.



We had to re-do our three trials to obtain the correct concentration. We learned our lesson though, and managed our impulsivity by slowly titrating the acid.

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