Anatomy and Physiology (1): Oh my God, this test was stressful. It was a ten-station test, five minutes each, with all multiple choice and fill-in-the-blank. My partner and I started off at the three easiest/shortest stations, got lulled into a false sense of security regarding how the rest of the test would be... and promptly started panicking when we realized how long the other stations were. There were a ton of quick judgment calls made on the spot and a lot of frantic writing at the
next station still trying to answer questions from the
previous station. One station was incredibly long and we didn't get to answer a good chunk of it... The test was fairly heavy on anatomy and histology, and there are many things I know we got wrong (and other things I'm not sure we got right), but we knew and guessed just enough to clutch the event out. My main complaint would be the difficulty/length imbalance between stations (this can mess with scores if some teams end at a hard station while others end on an easy one), but otherwise, it was one of the better A&P tests I've seen this season. It definitely feels like a huge accomplishment to have beaten a test like that, that's for sure.
(8/10)
Chemistry Lab (2): Meh. The labs were decently interesting, I guess—one of them had you determine whether an unknown liquid was pure water, a weak acid, or a buffer solution, while the other lab had you calculate the density of a plastic by mixing water and ethanol. My partner did the labs, though, so I did the written test... which was all just basic introductory/AP-level chemistry questions. Stuff like naming, periodic trends, bonding, and a lot of stoichiometry... not as much physical properties or acids/bases focus as I would've liked (the acids/bases questions were all really simple). The "short answer" (non-MC) calculations (didn't require showing work) were worth disproportionately more than the multiple choice questions despite not being any more difficult. I imagine that the labs were probably the biggest differentiator for the top teams. Not a bad test (nothing wrong with it, and there were some interesting questions), but not the most suitable one for Nationals... I'd have preferred the pure speed challenge of Jon Aros' tests.
(6/10)
Designer Genes (1): It's hard for me not to give it a 10/10 because I
loved this test. It was a long, challenging test that required a lot of interpretation, analysis, and thinking. We split up for the whole test and finished with only 2 minutes left, but I know a lot of teams didn't get to the end. My partner did all of the multiple choice (which was like SAT Reading) plus a few of the open response, while I did the bulk of the open response, which was nearly all heredity with some simple biotech mixed in. Heredity is by far my favorite and strongest part of Designer Genes, so I had a lot of fun; however, my complaint(-ish) with it is that the lopsided distribution of topics probably screwed many other teams over. I wasn't prepared for a lot of the molecular topics that I was expecting to show up, so if the test were different, we could have placed very differently. By the way, the event supervisor is really friendly and a really great person; she wrote MIT and helped out at our State tournament, too. I hope she supervises again next year.
(9/10)
Forensics (3): I mean, I don't really know how to rate this because it's exactly what we expected... The Woz runs it the same way every year, and my partner and I had done it at Nats together last year, so we were prepared. I think the test was shorter than usual, since some of the questions were worth more points than they normally are. No real complaints, though. Shoutouts to pikachu4919 for helping out with the event and also for reminding us not to leave our beakers and test tubes behind even after we had already left the room.
(7/10)
Sounds of Music (2): My partner was the one who tested the build, so I don't really know that was like, although I heard that the supervisor's frequency-measuring tool was way too lenient. It seems(?) like they got every team tested within the block (we were block 3), though I wasn't paying that much attention. If so, then that's good because normally the build testing gets progressively more and more backed up throughout the day. The only thing I can personally rate is the test, though, and honestly, I didn't really like it. It was mainly multiple-choice, with a few music theory/calculation short-answers. There were some AP Physics-level oscillation questions at the beginning, which threw me for a loop because why exactly are non-sound-related simple harmonic oscillators being tested in this event? We got them, but some teams might not have. A lot of the sound-based questions were concepts repeated over and over again; for instance, there were three questions in a row that were just v=sqrt(B/density). Same formula, spam three times... didn't really see the point. The free-response had a disproportionate number of points given to music theory (two scales, 8 points each? yikes), plus some chord theory... and the event description doesn't say anything about chords (again, we got them, but I'm sure not everyone did). What we
didn't get, though, was the huge volume of random instrument trivia questions. The event description says, "The design, function, and construction of the instrument
types"... which I don't think should include the specific differences between particular string instruments or the properties of an obscure Russian instrument we've never heard of, but maybe that's just me. We didn't know much of this at all and just guessed. There are lots of worse Sounds tests out there, but for Nationals, I wasn't particularly impressed.
(Test: 5/10)
Overall: I sort of agree with the vibe that it felt kind of like an invitational. I didn't see many other students outside when I was walking around campus on Friday or Saturday, and the awards ceremony felt very makeshift and rushed (i.e. flat track with ugly ceiling, red foldable chairs, low stage, not taking pictures on stage). I understand that the latter was probably not the organizers' fault if they couldn't get a better venue, but still, it felt disappointing compared to previous years. We stayed in Mary Donlon, and the dorm building was just so run-down on the inside. The lights in our room, plus some of the outlets, straight up didn't work, and the smell was far less than pleasant. Regardless, though, my actual events were run very well on the whole, and I had a great time competing and meeting everyone else across the country. I wouldn't have asked for any other conclusion to my career as a Science Olympiad competitor. Catch y'all from Division D next year!
I found the test to be on the easier side, and my other partner and I were ecstatic in finding out that we guessed the FASTA multiple choice question right (logic during test: FASTA = faster = 1 digit code). As for our placing, we did a little worse than we expected, and I can't surmise what went wrong. Although our onsite wasn't perfect, we didn't feel as though it could hurt us that much and the test was more-or-less ideal... Could've been a misgrade but it's more likely that its just something that I overlooked. 9.5/10
As for the test quality, I'd say it was a solid test. The time felt pretty comfortable for the 50 questions as we finished with around 5 minutes to spare, which is like not short enough so that we have 0 time to check, but also not long enough that we're sitting there bored for an extended period of time. The question content was new, which I enjoyed. I'm a hardcore memmer, but it's always good to see OC on a fermi test and this one was filled with it. Fermi should be a test of both memory and intuition skills and this fit the bill nicely. 10/10
