Chem Lab C

[Kokonilly]

Just a question: Did anyone do the nationals Chem Lab test? It seemed... easy.

[Tidus]

I am sooooooo mad about this test. We literally finished the test before we began the second lab portion, because it was so short and easy. We checked our answers afterwards, probably 5 times, but we didn't see one little tiny mistake we made.
What did we end up with? 28th! With like a half point worth of mistake... This test was probably the second easiest test I had in this year.....
What did you guys think about it? Does anybody know how they broke the ties?

[Paradox21]

I'd guess that they graded the tests really harshly. You had to show every single step they were expecting to be written down, or else you would not get the points. I think we lost points on the density lab. It seemed so simple; I think we did not show enough work.

[Kokonilly]

I am sooooooo mad about this test. We literally finished the test before we began the second lab portion, because it was so short and easy. We checked our answers afterwards, probably 5 times, but we didn't see one little tiny mistake we made.
What did we end up with? 28th! With like a half point worth of mistake... This test was probably the second easiest test I had in this year.....
What did you guys think about it? Does anybody know how they broke the ties?

Yeah, we got 27th with a very good test. I can't specifically remember any tiebreakers, but I do remember going through the test and finding few, if any mistakes. The problem was that it was not only east but also very short; there must have been no stratification between "good" and "mediocre" whatsoever.

I'd guess that they graded the tests really harshly. You had to show every single step they were expecting to be written down, or else you would not get the points. I think we lost points on the density lab. It seemed so simple; I think we did not show enough work.

We might also have lost points because of your terrible handwriting. But really, how much work can you show for density? Mass, volume... divide. We even wrote the formula down. But I do think the test was too easy for nationals; they may have encountered the problem of one point being a five-place difference or something similar. Maybe they got a lot of people on adding acid to water or sig figs or some tiny detail.

[Kokonilly]

EDIT: This was a repeat... sorry.

[MLBfreek35]

I'm thinking the test probably came down to stupid mistakes and accuracy on the density lab... For data, you really should have shown mass of empty beaker, mass of beaker + solution, and volume of solution. If they were grading our methods, you shouldn't have touched the graduated cylinder; all you needed was the volumetric pipette. And then your accuracy might have counted for something, which would have been an effective tiebreaker.

What I found surprising about this event was that the density lab was not one of the tasks listed on the event description. It says something about using density to find concentration, but just finding density on its own really has nothing to do with solutions. This made me and my partner think we'd done something wrong