There were calculus questions on the test? I thought that was generally frowned upon in SciolyJustin72835 wrote:(I liked the calc questions spread out across the test!)
Unless you just mean calculation problems lol
There were calculus questions on the test? I thought that was generally frowned upon in SciolyJustin72835 wrote:(I liked the calc questions spread out across the test!)
This basically exactly describes what I think of the test. I spent the second half of most of the stations sitting on the tables to rest my feet because we had absolutely nothing to do, despite going very slowly on most stations. Also would like to second an earlier comment about incredibly vague answer choices (that one about the habitat of Trionychidae stood out to me as well, and I think there was something similar about Malaclemys).birdylayaduck08 wrote:Herpetology (31): 3/10. 34 stations and 1:30 for 2 questions per station. I don't really know what happened here; the test was way too easy for Nationals and I'm guessing we made a few mistakes that dropped us down to the bottom half of teams. It really is disappointing to put so much time into an event, medal in it at MIT, but bomb it at Nationals. If I could redo this event, I have no idea what I would do differently. Taking the test itself was really boring and tedious, usually the adrenaline of the competition makes the time pass fast and makes you forget about everything except for the test itself. I constantly found myself trying to stay focused and keep working or checking my answers, and it really irked me that the proctor prided himself on how challenging this test was, when every question asked the most stale and basic questions in existence. Overall, I have no idea what to think about this, from blaming myself for not being good enough to wondering what there was even to be done when anyone is infallible to a few ID mistakes and this in itself shouldn't determine your skill level.
I agree with both herp and mission analysis even if I can't complain too much.heterodon wrote:Herpetology (2): 1/10. The Nationals Herpetology test was very disappointing. The proctor was insistent upon how “challenging” his test was, when in fact it was exceedingly too simple for a Science Olympiad Nationals test. The test was made up of 34 stations, each of which only had TWO questions: One was identification, and the other was either a multiple choice question or a fill in the blank (only 2 stations were different: a rest station and one with two trivia questions). The multiple choice and fill in the blank questions were very baseline and simple (“what is the diet of this specimen?” “what does the animal do when in a cool environment?”). These questions are very basic, and each answer easily found even on the specimen’s Wikipedia page. Frankly, someone could have printed out the Wikipedia page for each specimen on the list and could have performed well. Additionally, some of the questions that were multiple choice in fact had multiple correct answers (ex: asking what the habitat of soft shell turtles are, two of the possible answers being “brackish environment” and “freshwater”, when in fact the Chinese soft shell turtle can live in brackish waters and most others live in freshwater). Limiting the answers to multiple choice when the answers are complex and nuanced limited our ability to prove our knowledge and research, and, in fact misrepresented many of the samples. Many teams could have lost points on these sorts of questions (as there were many examples of this on the test, most of them relating to habitats). However, the most egregious part of this test was how the proctor mistakenly provided the answers to the identification portion. He cited the images he provided, many of the being urls which had the NAME of the specimen inside of it. He did a very poor job of sharpie-ing out the specimen’s name and thus provided the answer. This test was too simple for this level of competition, and was evidently poorly run. A Herpetology test like MIT, which had in-depth biological, ecological content that required intensive research and knowledge would have been much more appropriate for Nationals. On the Nationals test, we weren’t asked to identify sounds, know about evolutionary history, specific anatomy of reptiles and amphibians (barring 1 question), or provide detailed information on every specimen. Months and months are slaved into researching and learning this event, and all of this felt wasted after taking this test.
Rocks and Minerals (9): 8/10. This event was run very efficiently and had great samples. However, the questions were on the easy side and were strikingly similar to last year's test.
Experimental Design (10). 7/10. Plenty of materials, allowed for interpretation and creativity with the given topic. Seemed better than years before.
2017 (r/s/n): Hydro: 3/5/18 Robot Arm: na/1/1 Rocks: 1/1/1 2018 (r/s/n): Heli: 2/1/7 Herp: 1/4/4 Mission: 1/1/6 Rocks: 1/1/1 Eco: 6/3/9 2019 (r/s/n): Fossils: 1/1/1 GLM: 1/1/1 Herp: 1/1/5 Mission: 1/1/3 WS: 4/1/10 Top 3 Medals: 144 Golds: 80
There was one calculus free response and one calculus multiple choice. They're always super fun when they come up, even if they are frowned upon by Science Olympiad .MIScioly1 wrote:There were calculus questions on the test? I thought that was generally frowned upon in SciolyJustin72835 wrote:(I liked the calc questions spread out across the test!)
Unless you just mean calculation problems lol
Technically, the hydrostatic force problem didn't need calculus if you had the integrated form of the equation.Justin72835 wrote:There was one calculus free response and one calculus multiple choice. They're always super fun when they come up, even if they are frowned upon by Science Olympiad .MIScioly1 wrote:There were calculus questions on the test? I thought that was generally frowned upon in SciolyJustin72835 wrote:(I liked the calc questions spread out across the test!)
Unless you just mean calculation problems lol
Oh I agree, very fun. I think they are frowned upon because Scioly assumes that many people will have not taken calculus until they are seniors. I decided not to put calculus on my hovercraft test for that reason, even though I rrrrealy wanted toJustin72835 wrote:There was one calculus free response and one calculus multiple choice. They're always super fun when they come up, even if they are frowned upon by Science Olympiad .
Ahemmmmmmm, you probably know very well why I checked, demanded that you didn't, and you know how much coaches complained that the tests were still too hard;P (which, there was a lot of variation, some too easy, some too hard...).MIScioly1 wrote:Oh I agree, very fun. I think they are frowned upon because Scioly assumes that many people will have not taken calculus until they are seniors. I decided not to put calculus on my hovercraft test for that reason, even though I rrrrealy wanted toJustin72835 wrote:There was one calculus free response and one calculus multiple choice. They're always super fun when they come up, even if they are frowned upon by Science Olympiad .
Hi there! It wasn’t really “[me] and company” since I actually was not at all involved in the writing of the test, nor was I involved in the planning of the water testing strategy, but that’s OK, you don’t need to change your post to reflect that. I was just a general volunteer helping out the supervisors as best as I could, but I’m sure they would appreciate your feedback! As for the probes, I believe (and this is my personal opinion - it may not necessarily reflect the intentions of the supervisors) those were left in the whole time because they were timed and set up to track the temperature for the entire cooling time, essentially to make sure the final reading at the end of 30 minutes was more accurate than us using a clock or a stopwatch or something of that sort to check for the passing of 30 minutes. I do understand your concerns, but yeah, none of that was really my idea in the first place. I’m glad you overall liked how the event was run despite some of the things that could have been better!The48thYoshi wrote:
Thermodynamics (13): I have nothing to say about thermo other than I severely under-prepared. Throughout most of the season, the test portion was essentially trivial and way to easy. The test at nationals was a good mix of easy and difficult questions and I have nothing negative to say other than that leaving the probes in the device impacted accuracy as the water heated up the probe to thermal equilibrium. Good job pikachu and company, you ran this event very well. Overall, 9/10.
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