National test discussion

[Techsam]

That is something I always want to know. Finding out raw scores and actually seeing what it takes to be the best is really motivational. I liked the MIT inviational espically because they released raw scores and also showed them during the award ceremony.

[SOnerd]

Ooo, does anyone have raw scores for Ento B?

[sciolyboy123]

Raw scores for Bio or Disease???

[John Richardsim]

I say we riot until chalker reveals all raw scores to us!

ANARCHY! ANARCHY! ANARCHY!

[sciolyboy123]

Yep

[bernard]

I think everyone should not be literally asking Chalker for every single score available. Alright, if the nats people all decide to release it it's on them :P. But honestly, it is not, and should not be, essential to see the scores for everything (even builds). Sure, some people like it for motivation, but please try to be reasonable when asking Chalker stuff, as we all know he's a busy man ;). Just keep to the discussions of what the tests were like please :P.

Made some edits to syo_astro's post...

[chalker]

If you want the complete raw scores, get the National test cd when it's available in the store in the fall. I'm happy to piecemeal out a few here and there, primarily for events in my committee (which I have), but I'm not going to continue to do that for all the events... it does take a bit of time for me to dig them up, which starts to add up when there are lots of requests.

[sam123]

Hi Chalker,
I hate to ask you this but I have to. ....can you please post some statistics (mean, mode, range) on the Simple Machines test. I was bit disappointed on the test being very easy and not testing real in depth of the material.

[jonpao523]

Astronomy (1): This is my favorite event, so perhaps I'm biased, but this was my favorite test from nationals. The physics section could have been a little harder, but that's not to say that the test wasn't hard enough. I can't speak for the DSO questions - that's my partner's job - but I'm sure they were fantastic questions too. Overall, definitely an A for this event.

Compound Machines (8): The test was super easy; guessing from what I normally score on the build section and the top 6 scores posted by chalker, I doubt I lost more than 2 points on it. My partner and I finished the entire thing in ~12 minutes and turned it in with 20 minutes left in the set. After a while, my partner started timing other teams on the build section to see how our competition was doing . It all came down to the build section for the top teams. While an easy test is certainly disappointing, I honestly can't say that the rules for this event ask for a much more difficult test. The build section was run fairly well, except for one instance where the proctor walked away from a team in the middle of their run and wasn't there to stop their time. Overall, I'd give this a B.

Chemistry Lab (22): I have to agree with some other people's thoughts on this event; the test was on the whole unsatisfactory. It came down to who could plug and chug numbers fast enough, and who could execute simple lab procedure and in a crazy short amount of time. There was little critical thinking and little advanced chemistry. I feel as though a nationals test should, instead of being a lot of mundane questions, be very high level questions that push competitors to learn beyond what they learn in school and advanced labs that require knowledgeable and precise lab procedure. Additionally, I believe that some of the stoich was copied straight from last year's test! It's always frustrating to see recycled tests, especially at nationals. Overall, I'd give this event a D.

It's About Time (8): Absolutely loved the test! I though the focus on physics was great because it avoided so-called "derpy" questions, which I feel detract from the integrity of this event. The timekeeping questions were also good and helped sort out teams who hadn't studied/didn't have a good binder, but weren't exceedingly obscure. More questions on calendars would have been cool, but that's just another facet the event proctors could have focused on but chose not to. Overall, definitely an A.

TPS (25): The good news on this event was that it followed the spirit of the rules well and the test was well-written. The downside, as mentioned before, was that it was essentially a repurposing of the ti case files and that the lab materials were somewhat sketchy. Personally, I couldn't get data for the colorimeter part that made much sense, and I wonder if that had something to do with that. Overall, I think this event was a B. On a side note, does anybody who placed well in this event remember what they got for their final results? We got a rather short suspect at 5'4" and a very quick death of 7.5 minutes. I suspect the latter value wasn't even close.

[liberalartslover]

Dynamic Planet (4)
I wasn't too pleased with this test. I think the guy that wrote it underestimated just how in depth we all studied for it and made the test was ridiculously basic. While there weren't bad questions, they just weren't nationals level. If the questions aren't going to be difficult, at least make a bunch of them so that there's some sort of way to differentiate the top teams. Instead, there were 12 MC questions at one station... in 11 minutes. Not even close to the kind of quality/difficulty I was expecting at nationals. I felt the test turned into who made the least number of mistakes rather than who actually understood oceanography the best. Yes, if it's so easy you shouldn't make stupid mistakes. But I also feel that there should be more difficult content to really separate the best teams.

3/10 (The buoyancy section was awesome)

Geologic Mapping (6)
This was more like what I was expecting from a nationals level test. My partner and I split it up and worked individually for the entire time, and still probably left 30% at least blank. The problems were a wide variety of difficulties as well as an impossible amount of questions. I doubt anybody finished, and that's okay because it's nationals and you shouldn't be getting 100% on the test. Instead, the best team will answer the most questions and will win. The hands-on maps were a great touch, and the problems were extremely well-written. I really hope the same person proctors next year, but I also hope there are some more mathematical calculation problems with strike/dip etc. rather than just the straight map analysis.

10/10