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Practical skills assessed in the practical endorsement

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Question 4

Serial dilutions are commonly used in environmental monitoring to estimate the concentration of microorganisms in a water body.

An environmental scientist collected a 40 cm340\text{ cm}^340 cm3 pond water sample containing 1.5×1071.5 \times 10^71.5×107 microalgae cells.

  • 5%5\%5% of the 40 cm340\text{ cm}^340 cm3 sample was transferred to a test tube and made up to 25 cm325\text{ cm}^325 cm3 with distilled water.
  • An additional eight-fold dilution was carried out, which produced a final 40 cm340\text{ cm}^340 cm3 solution.
  • 0.16 cm30.16\text{ cm}^30.16 cm3 of this final 40 cm340\text{ cm}^340 cm3 solution was transferred to a hemocytometer slide.

Each microalgae cell counted on the slide corresponds to a single viable cell in the portion of the sample.

Estimate the number of microalgae cells you would expect to see on the hemocytometer slide.

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Practical skills assessed in the practical endorsement Questions

  1. A Level
  2. /Biology
  3. /Practical skills assessed in the practical endorsement