IGNOU BHCL 122 Practical for BAFHSC: Fundamentals of Food and Nutrition

What does the IGNOU BHCL 122 Practical ask in the BAFHSC second semester?

BHCL-122 belongs to the Bachelor of Arts (Home Science) under the four-year undergraduate structure, run by the School of Continuing Education. The handbook IGNOU printed in December 2025 is a 58-page PDF: six exercise worksheets, ten sample recipes, the exam procedure, two evaluation sheets and a certificate page. It calls BHCL-122 “Course 4” of the first year.

Across practical courses, the learners who come to us are often relaxed about their theory papers and anxious about the practical half. With BHCL-122 the practical half is real work in a market and a kitchen, so it deserves the same calendar space you give BHCC-122.

We also meet BAFHSC learners who realise only late in the semester that BHCL-122 is a course of its own. The prospectus lists it as a separate 2-credit course, so it needs its own exercises, its own file and its own practical fee.

Three causes sit behind most practical trouble we see: late or uneven information, practicals that expect time and presence a working learner rarely has spare, and files treated as formatting. BHCL-122 asks for a market visit, a cooked dish and a counsellor’s remarks, so it needs your time and presence.

Most exercises in the IGNOU BHCL 122 Practical handbook follow a similar worksheet pattern: a title, aims, a short introduction, the tools or materials, a step-by-step procedure, a table you fill, and a written reflection. Exercise 3 replaces the table with a visual aid, and Exercise 6 ends with the counsellor’s remarks in place of a written reflection. The handbook asks you to contact your Academic Counsellor before starting any exercise, because the report format varies from one exercise to the next.

Writing your IGNOU BHCL 122 Practical file in your own words

The IGNOU BHCL 122 Practical file is your filled worksheets, written in the report format given with each exercise, with the certificate from the handbook’s appendix. The handbook asks you to answer each question it lists. After you finish the exercises, the file goes to your Academic Counsellor for evaluation. The counsellor’s brief is to judge accuracy, hygiene, data interpretation and the quality of your reflections. Bring your practicum notebook to the term-end exam.

The handbook sets no binding, page count, handwriting rule or language rule for the BHCL 122 practical file. Where your centre has a local preference, it will tell you.

Practical reports usually lose marks when one section of the sequence is missing. In BHCL-122 the sequence is printed in each worksheet, and the handbook asks you to answer each question it lists.

Ready-made practical files do circulate, and identical ones from the same centre stand out. BHCL-122 has a viva after the practical exam, and a file you cannot explain shows up there.

An AI-written reflection carries the same danger. It reads like everyone else’s and cannot describe what your vendor told you, so write each BHCL-122 reflection from your own notes.

Exercises 1 to 3: the market, the 30-food table and the pyramid

The IGNOU BHCL 122 Practical opens with fieldwork: Exercise 1 sends you to two markets. One should be a local or weekly market, such as a haat, kirana store or sabzi mandi; the other a costlier supermarket, mall or branded retail shop. You choose three of the nine food groups the handbook lists, price at least two items from each in both markets, fill the eight-column table and a short vendor profile, and talk to the vendor about freshness, origin, branded varieties and the season when prices move.

The next two tasks of the IGNOU BHCL 122 Practical are done at a desk. Exercise 2 gives you a fixed list of 30 foods, from egg and spinach to tur dal and broccoli. For each you write the food group and tick the nutrients it is rich in, choosing only from protein, iron, calcium, vitamin A and vitamin C. Exercise 3 asks for a food pyramid as a chart, an A3 or A2 poster, or a 3D model, with four or five levels, three to five foods per level, nutrient labels and colour coding. The counsellor writes a remark out of 2.5 marks on your pyramid: creativity and presentation 1, correct classification 1, neatness and clarity 0.5.

In reflection boxes we often see lines like “I visited two markets and noted prices”. The BHCL-122 Exercise 1 reflection asks why prices differ between markets and how seasons affect supply, and the counsellor assesses data interpretation and the quality of reflections.

Some learners fill survey tables without going to a market. For BHCL-122 Exercise 1 the prices, vendor answers and remarks must come from your own visit in your own area; the handbook’s filled sample table is labelled as an example not to be copied.

Others paste nutrient notes from websites into the BHCL-122 Exercise 2 reflection without checking them. Work from your BHCC-122 blocks or a nutrition chart, as the handbook’s materials list suggests, and write the reflection in your own words.

Questions on the BAFHSC practical side

Theory guides for the BHCC-122 half of the course

We do not sell BHCL-122 practical files. What helps with the practical is the theory it draws on: the handbook sends you to BHCC-122 blocks for the market survey, the food groups and the cooking methods. These are the BAFHSC theory items in our store that fit this stage.

Learners from Hindi-medium schooling often struggle to write technical reflections in English, and English-medium learners lack the Hindi terms when they switch. BAFHSC is offered in English and Hindi and the BHCL-122 handbook sets no language rule for the file, so check with your counsellor which medium yours may use.

Keep the receipt of your exam form and practical fee. If a BHCL-122 mark goes missing, that slip is what you will have to show.

The Rs 300 practical fee and where BHCL-122 sits in BAFHSC

The IGNOU BHCL 122 Practical carries 2 credits, so it falls in the prospectus slab for practicals of up to 4 credits: a practical examination fee of Rs 300, paid with the term-end exam form, which is filled online afresh for every June or December exam. The fee is neither refundable nor adjustable if you miss the exam.

BAFHSC is open to learners with 10+2, with English and Hindi as the media of instruction. The prospectus lists Rs 5,500 a year, 3 or 4 years minimum and 6 or 8 years maximum, with January and July admission. In semester 2 you take BHCC-122 (4 credits) and BHCL-122 (2 credits) with a vocational minor, BEVAE-181 and a value-added course. The prospectus marks an exit after the first year with a UG Certificate at 40 credits plus 4 vocational credits.

Learners often confuse the Rs 300 and Rs 500 slabs in IGNOU’s project and practical fee rules. For BHCL-122 the 2-credit size puts you in the Rs 300 practical slab.

How do the 100 marks of the IGNOU BHCL 122 Practical split?

The IGNOU BHCL 122 Practical carries 100 marks. Internal assessment is 30: attendance 10 and the exercises 20. You must complete at least five of the six exercises; the counsellor evaluates every one you submit and counts the best four at 5 marks each. The external half is 70: 50 for doing the practical and writing the answer sheet, and 20 for the viva.

Most learners we hear from hold a job, run a home, or both, and practical sessions are where a session slips away. IGNOU’s prospectus makes attendance at practical sessions compulsory, and the BHCL-122 handbook goes further by turning attendance itself into 10 of your internal marks.

Friends at another study centre may describe a different routine for the same course. For BHCL-122, hold on to what the handbook fixes, five exercises at least, best four counted, attendance scored, and ask your own Learner Support Centre for its session dates.

Counsellor remarks often come with changes to make, and some learners file the sheet without making them. The BHCL-122 handbook asks you to make the suggested corrections and resubmit the work.

The BHCL 122 practical exam: three hours, then the viva

The BHCL 122 practical exam is held separately from the theory paper. It runs for three hours at the study centre, conducted by the Regional Centre. The question paper is set by the programme coordinators at the IGNOU head office, and every candidate gets the same paper. You collect the materials you need, perform the practical, report your findings on the answer sheet and hand it to the internal examiner. The viva follows, taken by the internal examiner and the external examiner or course coordinator.

Bring your practicum notebook. The handbook adds that the viva can also be conducted online; ask your study centre whether that applies to your batch.

Learners regularly ask us if their practical has a viva. For BHCL-122 it does: 20 of the 70 external marks, after the written practical.

We see viva marks lost by learners with neat files who cannot explain their own method. In BHCL-122 the viva follows the written practical, so be ready to say how you calculated a yield factor or why you placed a food on a pyramid level.

Practical dates are posted by Regional Centres and study centres, and learners who do not check miss a slot. The prospectus says the Learner Support Centre gives the practical schedule, so watch your own centre’s notices for the BHCL-122 session and exam.

What should you keep ready before the kitchen exercises?

The IGNOU BHCL 122 Practical moves into your kitchen for its last three exercises, and each worksheet lists its own equipment. Gather it before you start, because Exercise 4 compares the same food raw and cooked, and Exercise 5 needs each part of a food weighed on the same scale.

The good news is that the write-up is where marks are easiest to recover. For BHCL-122 Exercises 4 and 5, the handbook prints guide questions with each reflection; use them to plan what you discuss.

The BAFHSC learners who manage BHCL-122 calmly start early, check the session dates with their own centre, keep dated notes from the market and the kitchen, get the counsellor’s remarks as they go, and can explain each number in the file. Those habits prevent most of the trouble described above.

Exercises 4, 5 and 6: measuring, edible portion and cooking

Exercise 4 is done with a weighing scale and your own cups, spoons and bowls. You weigh a food raw, note its household measure, cook it by one standard method such as boiling or steaming without added salt or oil, then weigh and measure it again. The yield factor is cooked weight divided by raw weight. The handbook’s own sample shows rice at 3.0 and spinach below 1, because rice absorbs water and spinach loses it.

Exercise 5 uses a digital kitchen scale, a knife or peeler and separate bowls. You record the whole weight (W1), the edible part (W2) and the discarded part (W3), then work out the edible portion as W2 divided by W1, times 100, and the non-edible portion as the remainder. The sample foods are potato, banana, mango, a whole fish and papaya, and you may swap in whatever is locally available. The Part II form also asks where you bought the foods and the type of shop.

Exercise 6 is the cooking task. You record ingredients and quantities, the step-wise method, the portion size for one person, and an approximate nutrient content from standard food composition tables; the handbook points to the ICMR-NIN tables. Then you present the dish to your counsellor, who writes remarks on taste, texture, colour and appeal, nutritional balance, and hygiene and safety. Ten sample recipes follow, from pulao, idli and arhar dal to farah, besan chilla, mix vegetable curry, bhindi fry, chena sweet, gajar halwa and egg curry.

How many dishes? The handbook does not settle it. Its introduction asks for at least one dish from each of five groups including fruits; its procedure lists cereals, pulses, vegetables and milk products with meat, fish or poultry as an option; the recipe form and summary table have room for one recipe. Your counsellor’s instruction decides this, so ask before you shop for ingredients.

In measurement practicals we often see arithmetic that does not match the readings, or a conclusion the table cannot support. In BHCL-122 Exercises 4 and 5, check that each yield factor and each edible share is calculated from the weights written beside it.

Weak records in this kind of work usually have blank observation rows, a missing calculation or no note on what went wrong. The BHCL-122 Exercise 4 sheet asks you to name the scale and cooking method, and Exercise 5 invites you to explain small differences caused by uneven peeling or a faulty scale.

Many learners assume they must cook one of the printed recipes. The BHCL-122 handbook says the sample recipes are there for convenience, and you may choose any other standard recipe, including one from traditional knowledge, under your counsellor’s guidance.

Which four BHCL-122 points should you settle with your counsellor?

The IGNOU BHCL 122 Practical handbook leaves four things open, and each one is a short question for your Academic Counsellor:

1. When the practical file is due, since the handbook prints no last date for it.
2. How Exercises 4, 5 and 6 are marked against the 5 marks Annexure A gives each exercise, since Exercise 4 prints no marks and Exercises 5 and 6 print more than one 2.5.
3. How many dishes Exercise 6 needs.
4. Whether your file may be written in Hindi, since the handbook sets no language rule.

The last column of the exercise map near the top of this page shows why point 2 matters. Annexure A, the internal evaluation sheet, gives each exercise 5 marks. Exercise 6 prints 2.5 for the recipe write-up and 5 for the counsellor’s remarks, 7.5 in all; Exercise 5 prints 2.5 three times, on the Part II heading, the observation table and the reflection; Exercise 4 prints none.

At our desk, the records show 70 to 80 percent of learners starting work only in the final month before a date that matters. The BHCL-122 handbook prints no last date for the file, so ask your counsellor when it is due; a market survey cannot be done the night before.

Learners also ask us which office takes a practical file. For BHCL-122 the handbook names one recipient: your Academic Counsellor, under whom the practicals run at your Learner Support Centre.

Mismatches like these are common. A learner reads one version in the handbook, hears another at counselling and sees yet another in a senior’s old file. For BHCL-122 Exercise 6, the handbook itself sends you to the counsellor, so take the counsellor’s answer and note it on your sheet.

For the IGNOU BHCL 122 Practical, the handbook, your counsellor and your own centre’s notices are the three things to trust; this page is a map of the first one.

If you are also planning the BAFHSC project or dissertation in a later year, read our BAFHSC project and dissertation guide on ignouproject.com.

shrichakradhar.com is an independent publisher and is not affiliated with, authorised by or endorsed by IGNOU. Your BHCL-122 practical file must be your own work; our books are study reference material and are not for submission as your own work.