Listening+to+Others+and+Understanding+with+Empathy

Listening to Others and Understanding with Empathy
As I've mentioned multiple times before, working with formulas never sits well with me. During our Acids and Bases unit, we had to work a lot with calculating concentration, dilution, and of course, calculating pH and pOH.

Calculating pH and pOH is fairly simple, this was one of the concepts I took a strong liking to, mainly because I actually understood it. However, when we had to calculate the pH or pOH of a diluted solution, I lost my clear understanding. However, I was confident, and I thought I could do these problems with ease. In fact, I was close to success because I had gotten two of these kinds of problems correct. When it came to the last one, though, I thought I had done it, but it turns out, I was completely wrong.

Luckily, Emily Y. who seems to be an expert in any kind of calculation was able to help me. She explained a simple method to me that produced the right answer. It turns out this problem was harder than the others as it was worded differently, and it involved a solution formed by HCl gas and water as opposed to dissolving a solid in water. Instead of using the regular C1V1 = C2V2, she told me that all I had to do was divide the given concentration and given volume and then negative log it.

She made it sound very simple, but I wasn't able to grasp the concept, and I kept referring back to C1V1 = C2V2. We both listened to each other and she was able to explain to me what I was not understanding. With the help of Emily, I was able to do the problem correctly.