Is oxidation endothermic or exothermic?

I was reading the tick list for Enthalpy Changes, and the third bullet point is
Define the importance of oxidation as an endothermic process in:
-the combustion of fuels
-the oxidation of carbohydrates (such as glucose) in respiration
However, both of these processes are exothermic. Is that just a mistake, then?
Also, have we done anything on this?

Equilibrium and acids

As part of the reading on equilibrium, I came across a description of the dynamic equilibrium that occurs when ethanoic acid is dissolved in water, so I now understand more about the difference between strong and weak acids, that I didn't understand before.
Here are just a few questions:
Given that pH is the negative logarithm of the number of H+ ions in solution, is that related to the strength, rather than the concentration of the acid? Also, how does this change with a diprotic acid with two H+ ions (eg for each mole of H2SO4, there will be two moles of dissociate H+ ions and one mole of SO4 2- ions). When H2SO4 reacts halfway to form HSO4, will that have a different pH?
Also, when we've learnt about a metal reacting with an acid, it always says with an excess of acid. What happens if the metal is in excess?

Esterification

Earlier something randomly came into my head involving esterification. I know we've only lightly touched on it but something got me thinking;

What determines the final smell? does the smell depend on the alcohol or carboxylic acid used? so can you have a different smell for every combination of acid and alcohol or does each particular acid/alcohol always give the same smell no matter what is added to it?

Steve

Conclusions from rates data

For experiment 6 (powdered chips) I was surprised to see that the rate of reaction was lower than experiment 1 (in a certain amount of time, less mass had been lost), but also less mass was being lost generally compared to experiment 1, which is strange, because the same mass of chips and volume of acid were being used.
This is contrary to what I would have expected, because a greater surface area would mean more collisions => more successful collisions.
Can anyone explain this result?
Thanks.