Every year about this time in the semester when I teach General Chemistry I, I realize that one of the  significant obstacles in chemistry for my students is their ability to read and interpret problems - they get hung up on the translation of words.  I'd really like to find more examples of word problems that don't require specific chemical knowledge but do require this translation (and involve things like unit conversion and percentages). We develop a problem solving method in class, but I feel like working with this sort of problem would be really beneficial.

What are strategies you have/use to deal with/help students who all of a sudden (or slowly, gradually, all afternoon) find themselves with 30 minutes left in a lab period, with 2 hours of work left to do.  How do you head this off, especially in a large lab section?  How do you deal with it once its too late?