previous single assay and single microplate example in which the reagents are dispensed in the following order r 1 standard and r 2 the locations of the dispensed reagents and standards on the reaction microplate for the calibration assays are shown in fig5 where one observes that each reagent and standard is dispensed into a single microwell of an assay specific column on the reaction microplate the unused reagents recall that the reagent microwells were filled with sufficient reagent for performing two assays may be used to perform assays on unknown samples after the completion of the calibration assays alternatively in another embodiment a separate reagent microplate can be used for calibration assays where the volumes of the reagents in the microwells of the separate reagent microplate can be filled with only enough reagent to perform a single assay in which case the residual reagent volumes are minimized as previously described the assays signals from the microwells of each column on the reaction microplate are used to construct dose response curves for the six assays once a calibration has been performed for all six assays the reagent microplate alone can be used to perform assays on unknown samples the automated microplate analyzer performs the six assays by dispensing the reagents and samples in the following order r 1 samples r 2 the locations of the dispensed reagents and samples on the reaction microplate are shown in fig6 in this case.