New Jersey 2018

[whythelongface]

There were a few good tests sandwiched between some really awful ones. For example:
1. The R&M C test was taken from another state. No specimens, all pictures, although the pictures were of such awful quality it became a guessing game. The questions not involving pictures were really easy, but some of them involved minerals not on the National List (e.g. chlorite, pyrophyllite). I think the score distributions were all clustered together. I got second in that event, even after placing consistently first in all the invitationals I've been to. I'm not salty. I'm not salty. I'M NOT SALTY

2. Fermi Questions gave you the exact numbers you needed to solve every problem. The event lost 98% of its estimation aspect, and basically became an exercise in no-calculator dimensional analysis. Example: one question asked for the number of grains of rice within a bag of a certain mass in kilograms, and then proceeded to tell you how many grains of rice were in a gram.

3. Hovercraft had a question that asked for history of hovercrafts, even though the rules explicitly forbid testing on that topic.

4. Forensics C turned into Crime Busters B, giving people who had previously done Crime Busters an advantage with the powders. Four of the powders - gelatin, sand, strontium chloride [citation needed]. and something else I don't remember - were purely CB powders, and the Forensics rules forbid testing on any powder besides what is listed in the Forensics rules. In addition, the event also broke the rules when the test asked for a specific type of blood, whereas the rules forbid the question from being at that level of specificity.

There are a lot more I'm not going to list here, but hopefully y'all get an idea of how badly run some of the events were this year. It's not purely NJSO's fault, but I still want to complain about it. A lot.

[knottingpurple]

How did you guys feel about the test quality at states? I thought it was ok, but I have to say the Division B Dynamic Planet test was really bad. Here is an example of a problem (or at least what I remembered): The boundary between an oceanic plate and a continental plate occurs: _____. There are so many possible answers that it's dumb (I put subduction zone down if you're wondering).

A lot of other people will probably rant about all the really bad things which happened, so I'll just give reviews of my own events:

Division C Dynamic Planet was mostly multiple choice, and pretty straightforward multiple choice, not the type of obscure questions I got used to being asked by, say, the PUSO DP test. The short answer section at the end we poured our freaking hearts and souls into because we were sure it was going to come down to tiebreaks on that because everyone was going to get all the multiple choice (except, of course, the multiple choice with multiple equally right answers, or no truly correct answers at all, etc, because those were definitely present, and they would've been a random guessing game). But I mean, the test followed the rules.

Remote Sensing was a reasonable quality test for the most part - it only had 3 image interpretation questions, on a ~90 question test, aka... that was nowhere near 25% of the test, but I guess it's not too big of a deal. The test followed the current year's topic, it had enough questions of varying difficulty to differentiate scores, etc. Also the equation section at the end stressed me out because there were more closing parentheses than opening parentheses in one of the equations they provided and it made me terrified (it was okay we did finish that question in the end because whythelongface does not have emotional panics over small details as easily as I do but yeah). Providing equations and asking people to interpret them is a good type of question which a lot of tests use, but maybe try using LaTeX or something for the equations so they're readable

Game On I got salty about them giving us a rubric because my partner and I had done all the work to memorize that and wanted to be rewarded thankyouverymuch, but alright, whatever. They had us email our games to them for grading, which is I'm sure very convenient to set up, but also it meant we can get to our games via looking in sent mail. I look forward to subjecting all my other teammates to playing our award winning game, but it's ironic that at invitationals, where you're supposed to be learning from the results, we couldn't get our games back even when we specifically emailed supervisors asking to see where we messed up - but at States, which doesn't return any tests, we can access our games after the fact.

EDIT: Also, the Game On topic was not something too common or boring; as the idea-creating person in our pairing, it made me have to work, so I approve of that.

[whythescratchyface]

This year's Experimental Design (C) was one of the most unique experiences I've had doing the event: the topic was permeability (in the context of earth science), a deviation from the normal cookie-cutter physics and water properties topics the event is plagued by. With messy materials like diatomaceous earth and sand, the cleanup took longer than usual, but the event directors definitely ensured that everything was cleaned up using the point deductions mentioned in the handout. Although the event was smoothly conducted for such a different experience, what was strange was that I saw the supervisors scribbling notes of the competitors, maybe to take note of people not fully doing the trials? Anyway, I'm glad I didn't have to bounce balls at different heights for once.

[whythelongface]

This year's Experimental Design (C) was one of the most unique experiences I've had doing the event: the topic was permeability (in the context of earth science), a deviation from the normal cookie-cutter physics and water properties topics the event is plagued by. With messy materials like diatomaceous earth and sand, the cleanup took longer than usual, but the event directors definitely ensured that everything was cleaned up using the point deductions mentioned in the handout. Although the event was smoothly conducted for such a different experience, what was strange was that I saw the supervisors scribbling notes of the competitors, maybe to take note of people not fully doing the trials? Anyway, I'm glad I didn't have to bounce balls at different heights for once.

Having done ExpDes at Yale last year, I can confirm that this sounds infinitely better than using a pendulum to knock over cups.

[pb5754]

This year's Experimental Design (C) was one of the most unique experiences I've had doing the event: the topic was permeability (in the context of earth science), a deviation from the normal cookie-cutter physics and water properties topics the event is plagued by. With messy materials like diatomaceous earth and sand, the cleanup took longer than usual, but the event directors definitely ensured that everything was cleaned up using the point deductions mentioned in the handout. Although the event was smoothly conducted for such a different experience, what was strange was that I saw the supervisors scribbling notes of the competitors, maybe to take note of people not fully doing the trials? Anyway, I'm glad I didn't have to bounce balls at different heights for once.

Having done ExpDes at Yale last year, I can confirm that this sounds infinitely better than using a pendulum to knock over cups.

So after whythelongface, there is now a whythescratchyface.

[knottingpurple]

This year's Experimental Design (C) was one of the most unique experiences I've had doing the event: the topic was permeability (in the context of earth science), a deviation from the normal cookie-cutter physics and water properties topics the event is plagued by. With messy materials like diatomaceous earth and sand, the cleanup took longer than usual, but the event directors definitely ensured that everything was cleaned up using the point deductions mentioned in the handout. Although the event was smoothly conducted for such a different experience, what was strange was that I saw the supervisors scribbling notes of the competitors, maybe to take note of people not fully doing the trials? Anyway, I'm glad I didn't have to bounce balls at different heights for once.

Having done ExpDes at Yale last year, I can confirm that this sounds infinitely better than using a pendulum to knock over cups.

So after whythelongface, there is now a whythescratchyface.

Yeah he's from our school as well, it is a deliberate parody of whythelongface

[DarthBuilder]

Wait, trial events count at nationals?

[shrewdPanther46]

Wait, trial events count at nationals?

They DO NOT!!
Everyone is just whining about NJ scioly and their broken policies

[CMS AC]

There is a reason to lol

[CMS AC]

Also, why does NJ have 18 people on a team instead of the normal 15?