Calibration very often makes the most difference in analytical results. This sounds like a pH meter scenario. Where the instrument is subject to more drift be

Calibration very often makes the most difference in analytical results. This sounds like a pH meter scenario. Where the instrument is subject to more drift because it is a community device, and undergrads doing identical experiments had never gotten very ideal results. The variation was accepted for "as good as it gets" and the powers that be were not prepared for an outlier that goes the extra mile for quality. Sometimes the most important lesson is that readings which are assumed to be accurate enough to calculate consistency (but are not fully verified) can often have more inherent variation than dissimilar bench techniques.