Microbe Mission B/C

[Skink]

I'd happily eviscerate, err, review if I could find it. The Test Exchange only has last season's materials as far as I can tell.

[Alex-RCHS]

I'd happily eviscerate, err, review if I could find it. The Test Exchange only has last season's materials as far as I can tell.

Eviscerate away!

Note: I'm assuming it's okay for me to release this because A) I wrote it and B) no teams are doing tryouts anymore anyway, right?

[Nano1llus10n]

Has anyone (with access to the Captains Tryouts) taken my Microbe test? If so, what did you think of it? I’m curious to see what I did well and what I did poorly.

It was pretty well made in general. It was organized and covered every section in the rules. The content was harder than usual but the test was also enjoyable to take (nice tardigrade question lol) and the length was manageable. There's not too much to improve on other than just go more in-depth and maybe include a few case studies. Let's see what other people think about the test.

[Skink]

Has anyone (with access to the Captains Tryouts) taken my Microbe test? If so, what did you think of it? I’m curious to see what I did well and what I did poorly.

+
nice micrographs
The micrographs in the disease section are hard, but I see where you were coming from with them. The first one bears the right shape (albeit barely). The second is obvious if you've studied it. I didn't know the third one, admittedly...
like beneficial microbes section
like the section after that, though the matching sections are super easy
"Antibiotics are a hoax."
I like how you've consciously used inclusive language.
several calculation questions
I expect C division teams to have a handle on purple and green sulfur bacteria (which you called "new" ideas), but I asked a similar question at a tournament the other day, myself. Anoxygenic photosynthesis is wicked cool, and the fact that high schoolers generally can understand chemical equations makes metabolism questions interesting.

+/-
Eh, Kingdom questions...we don't really use Protista anymore (it's really in that large pile of dead taxa), and you CAN Gram stain some fungi.
Insert-->Symbol-->Greek Letters

-
eww, microscope labeling (Consider: Make participants--yes, I get that this was a tryout exam--demonstrate that they understand the parts by having them use or troubleshoot, not name, them. The former demonstrates the ID and an underlying skill, while the latter is copying off of a cheat sheet...for B division. I'd assume most high school students in SO can ID microscope parts readily, at which point it's fluff.)
eww, disease-and-causative-agent matching
#37. You know how this question is going to go, right? Unless teams just know it (unlikely) or have relevant drugs on the cheat sheet, they're going to eliminate A and C and guess between the other two at 50/50 odds. Honestly, I prefer to ask Tx questions about things that require a little thought (e.g. action of penicillins, diseases that require respiratory support or rehydration, maybe ID of less commonly known drugs as antifungals (griseofulvin or fluconazole, for example), etc.).
What the heck is a tardigrade?

There's a lot of solid content here, and it clearly took time to construct. Compared against the average SSSS submission, it blows them out of the water. Having said that, I would, admittedly, be annoyed if my team got this at a tournament because it's a lot of name-this, what's-that and at a basic level, at times. For example, look at the Gram stain section. There's nothing wrong with it, per se, but it's super phoned-in. Instead of asking what reagents to use in each step discretely, if not doing this lab (not recommended), provide a scenario (e.g. of a mistake made) or micrograph (of the results) and have teams analyze; they can demonstrate understanding of the process in an actual, applied context. Make them infer cellular structure based on a micrograph as opposed to saying what type of cell wall should decolorize, for example.

Of course, that's just my opinion. My events are tough as nails by design, but that sort of comes with a more analytic and inferential, station-oriented slant. I do believe that's the goal of SO (and especially C division), though. Anyway, I hope that gives you some food for thought.

[Alex-RCHS]

It was pretty well made in general. It was organized and covered every section in the rules. The content was harder than usual but the test was also enjoyable to take (nice tardigrade question lol) and the length was manageable. There's not too much to improve on other than just go more in-depth and maybe include a few case studies. Let's see what other people think about the test.

I'm glad you liked it and enjoyed the tardigrade question!

+
nice micrographs
The micrographs in the disease section are hard, but I see where you were coming from with them. The first one bears the right shape (albeit barely). The second is obvious if you've studied it. I didn't know the third one, admittedly...
like beneficial microbes section
like the section after that, though the matching sections are super easy
"Antibiotics are a hoax."
I like how you've consciously used inclusive language.
several calculation questions
I expect C division teams to have a handle on purple and green sulfur bacteria (which you called "new" ideas), [I think your expectations for average students are probably higher than mine. This is a tryouts test after all ] but I asked a similar question at a tournament the other day, myself. Anoxygenic photosynthesis is wicked cool, and the fact that high schoolers generally can understand chemical equations makes metabolism questions interesting.

+/-
Eh, Kingdom questions...we don't really use Protista anymore (it's really in that large pile of dead taxa), and you CAN Gram stain some fungi.
Insert-->Symbol-->Greek Letters

-
eww, microscope labeling (Consider: Make participants--yes, I get that this was a tryout exam--demonstrate that they understand the parts by having them use or troubleshoot, not name, them. The former demonstrates the ID and an underlying skill, while the latter is copying off of a cheat sheet...for B division. I'd assume most high school students in SO can ID microscope parts readily, at which point it's fluff.)
eww, disease-and-causative-agent matching
[I agree 100% with those criticisms. I guess I was just hoping to add some extra length to the test but I should have done so by making the problems more interesting and requiring more thought.]

#37. You know how this question is going to go, right? Unless teams just know it (unlikely) or have relevant drugs on the cheat sheet, they're going to eliminate A and C and guess between the other two at 50/50 odds.
[Yes, I knew the question would go that way and it was intentional. If a student knows the treatment for Malaria (a difficult question but not altogether unexpected given the emphasis on disease treatment this year) then they get the point easily, if they don't know it but have a good knowledge of microbio then they will have a 50/50 chance (the equivalent of half a point), if they have a poor knowledge of microbio then they guess randomly (the equivalent of 1/4 of a point). Of course, that idea of "narrowing it down" only works when the test is long enough that random luck has negligible effect; I think this test is long enough to warrant that.]

Honestly, I prefer to ask Tx questions about things that require a little thought (e.g. action of penicillins, diseases that require respiratory support or rehydration, maybe ID of less commonly known drugs as antifungals (griseofulvin or fluconazole, for example), etc.).

What the heck is a tardigrade? [A water bear! This is a difficult, but not ridiculous question IMO.]

There's a lot of solid content here, and it clearly took time to construct. Compared against the average SSSS submission, it blows them out of the water. Having said that, I would, admittedly, be annoyed if my team got this at a tournament because it's a lot of name-this, what's-that and at a basic level, at times. For example, look at the Gram stain section. There's nothing wrong with it, per se, but it's super phoned-in. Instead of asking what reagents to use in each step discretely, if not doing this lab (not recommended), provide a scenario (e.g. of a mistake made) or micrograph (of the results) and have teams analyze; they can demonstrate understanding of the process in an actual, applied context. Make them infer cellular structure based on a micrograph as opposed to saying what type of cell wall should decolorize, for example. [Eh, that's fair but I thought the gram stain section emphasized a thorough understanding of the process way more than most tests do (as opposed to "put the steps in order" type questions)]

Of course, that's just my opinion. My events are tough as nails by design, but that sort of comes with a more analytic and inferential, station-oriented slant. [I can tell by your review that you write fantastic tests, and I appreciate your criticism. I would have normally written this as a stations test, because that is the ideal format for this event IMO, but because it was a tryouts test I thought it was better to keep it simple.]

I do believe that's the goal of SO (and especially C division), though. Anyway, I hope that gives you some food for thought.

Thanks for the thorough review! My thoughts are in bold.

Edit: Also, I haven't seen any commentary on my personal favorite question on the whole exam (can you guess which it is?) or on some other nuggets of comedy I threw in there.

[izzanom]

Hi guys, I feel like I know all of the basics and can perform pretty well on tests. However, there are always random details that seem to pop up that I dont know. Does anyone here have a good idea of what I should study or specific topics?

[NeilMehta]

Hi guys, I feel like I know all of the basics and can perform pretty well on tests. However, there are always random details that seem to pop up that I dont know. Does anyone here have a good idea of what I should study or specific topics?

Tbh, a lot of the random questions are repetitive between tests, so all i can recommend is to take as many tests as you can for practice and add everything to your notesheet

[The48thYoshi]

Hi guys, I feel like I know all of the basics and can perform pretty well on tests. However, there are always random details that seem to pop up that I dont know. Does anyone here have a good idea of what I should study or specific topics?

Tbh, a lot of the random questions are repetitive between tests, so all i can recommend is to take as many tests as you can for practice and add everything to your notesheet

I tend to agree with Neil here. After you can safely say that you know all the basics it’s just down to the random details that decides between the top 10 at a competitive invitational. Make sure that you can usually get above 90 percent on all of the basics and then expand. Just take a lot of tests. The more you can take the better. Also microbe is one of those events where there are actually textbooks that can help you. For division B they go overboard on the details, and you don’t need to know everything in the textbook, but personally, I feel like the textbook is a really good resource on the more practical fields of microbe such as food, industry, disease, and antimicrobials.
Also random questions do tend to repeat a lot like Neil said. Just take tests.

[Celiepk]

There are a lot of conflicting things on various rules and sites. As far as anyone knows, am I right that we get a binder for regionals, pages for state? And if i'm right, we do get two pages, correct? thank you all so much!

[Unome]

a binder for regionals

I believe this is a state-specific rule for Indiana in Division B. The national rules allow a single sheet.