Binder Events

For anything Science Olympiad-related that might not fall under a specific event or competition.
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Re: Binder Events

Post by pb5754 »

JoeyC wrote: February 16th, 2020, 7:45 pm This means that at high levels it comes down, once again, to putting trivia in your binders that can make-or-break. Further, those new to the event probably can't use their binder effectively in time constraints anyways.
tbh ive barely ever had to rely on having random info in my binders (all my events are binder events) as a make-or-break situation. I don't think that the problem is the binders. Rather, it's the test writers who put minimal effort into their tests and simply put in obscure information from wikipedia on tests. Switching to notesheets or even no notes at all is unlikely to significantly change this.
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Re: Binder Events

Post by twig »

My most recent comp was Jeffrey Trail and they decided to do about 5-13 questions in a station. (leaning more towards the 13 end)
It was so outrageous because we had to keep flipping our binder to the anatomy section because neither of us actually went in-depth with the studying for the anatomy of horn corals and sponges. I DON'T STARE AT SPONGE ANATOMY FOR LONG PERiODS OF TIME... WHo DOes ThAT? I got saved by a question that I memorized about a lophophore(a body part of a brachiopod). It was too fast and I kinda realized that we needed to go faster than the time. I failed to identify ~15 specimens correctly, cause there was THAT TIME CRUnCH of 3 minutes per station, 16 stations. I wasn't able to think that fast under that much pressure. Even our coach decided to come and watch us for a while and then left. The person who wrote the test did know their information really well, but I don't have a clue how the heck she thought the top teams could get most of the questions answered in 3 minutes. So many teams struggled that day, (and many gave up), well except Kennedy (they got 1st ). They didn't look like they were struggling at all, and they probably had all their information and ID by heart. I remember this moment so clearly lol, there was this team at station P, and we were at the station to the right of them, station O. I was writing, then heard the dude struggle to remember the name of the bird that he was looking for. He kept saying "icthy... icthy...icthy..." He never said
"ornis" though. (Icthyornis was the bird's name)They wasted like 30 seconds thinking of the name of one specimen and that's how crucial to know your ID well for ID events. Another team's binder exploded. Another team literally was talking and I was able to hear them, and they just stared at us. Our second team was also the station behind us, and I don't like it when they do that either because you know what they want to do... of course, try to cheat. That was a disaster then, but it was really good practice for many of the teams that were in there. I didn't even know what a sclerotic ring was. I put spray ring as a joke for my answer lol

We have 1 page per specimen, and half of the page is filled with random information. (state fossils, use of body structures, symbiotic relationships, why it's important that a Titanis died in Texas, etc.) Before the competition, I even created a section FOR random information. It was interesting learning about Manganese tektites though. As Joey said, a lot of my notes about fossils (or ID events in general) have really so much trivia on them. Even on our lagerstatten pages, we have about 90% trivia, the rest is just general info. Same with extinctions, evolution, preservation, anatomy, relative dating, absolute dating/radiometric dating, paleontologists, and famous people. I took a practice test (then found out that it was an old Div C test for Nats from Cornell? I think) and found that one of the pieces of information that we had in our binder was in there. I hate gastroliths for that reason. We even have a glossary for anatomy terms because there are so many for foramns. I have to know what an alar prolongation is just in case the test has a question like "Draw the anatomy of foraminifera." or "draw the anatomy of glass sponge"smh regionals never do that again You would have to cover all the bases in order to medal. It kinda explains how I got my Fossils medals this year, and still have no clue how I did it. Trivia is so key in ID events, and even in DP they will throw trivia in there and say "it should be in your binders" I would prefer the note sheets that I have for Meteorology any day than those two horrendous binders that I possess. In Meteo, I was also blanking because the sections were so long and in-depth. We got so many questions wrong that we should've gotten right. There's less trivia, and it's more about the data interpretation(if it's a good test), thank god.

Thanks for amazing tests at JT!
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Re: Binder Events

Post by Umaroth »

twig wrote: February 16th, 2020, 8:50 pm The person who wrote the test did know their information really well, but I don't have a clue how the heck she thought the top teams could get most of the questions answered in 3 minutes.

Thanks for amazing tests at JT!
Yes, very thankful to my friend from Mira Loma for writing that test. I don't remember what Kennedy got, but Kraemer got 2nd with something like 195 out if the 200something) I think 297). Speed and accuracy aren't inversely proportional like many seem to believe, they are directly proportional. As you get more accurate, you can answer faster.
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Re: Binder Events

Post by twig »

Wait what
They got 195/273 (2nd)

oH my goodness
We got like 150.5/273 (6th)
3 points for writing names, so realistically it was out of 270.

I wonder what the in-between teams got now (Jeffrey Trail, Carmel Valley, the other Kennedy team that's not Kennedy Gold, then us)
Your Kraemer kids do know their anatomy better than us, and it cost us so many points for so many stations and ID
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Re: Binder Events

Post by ChimpLopez »

Do you guys put sheet protectors on every page in your binder? I don't because I think it takes up too much space, but then pages always get pulled out by accident. If you guys are like me, then how do you fix the broken holes. I put tape over the holes and then re-hole punch them, but it doesn't work that well.
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Re: Binder Events

Post by MadCow2357 »

ChimpLopez wrote: February 26th, 2020, 5:16 am Do you guys put sheet protectors on every page in your binder? I don't because I think it takes up too much space, but then pages always get pulled out by accident. If you guys are like me, then how do you fix the broken holes. I put tape over the holes and then re-hole punch them, but it doesn't work that well.
I sometimes use these:
https://www.amazon.com/Avery-Hole-Reinf ... B00006IBUZ
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Re: Binder Events

Post by EwwPhysics »

ChimpLopez wrote: February 26th, 2020, 5:16 am Do you guys put sheet protectors on every page in your binder? I don't because I think it takes up too much space, but then pages always get pulled out by accident. If you guys are like me, then how do you fix the broken holes. I put tape over the holes and then re-hole punch them, but it doesn't work that well.
I don't put sheet protectors in my binder that because it's so time consuming, but I haven't had a problem with pages ripping out because I reprint my circuit lab binder after every competition because I always add a lot to the notes, so the pages are never worn out because they're new at every competition. (though I guess pages falling out isn't really a problem for circuit lab as there's no rule against taking pages out)
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Re: Binder Events

Post by builderguy135 »

ChimpLopez wrote: February 26th, 2020, 5:16 am Do you guys put sheet protectors on every page in your binder? I don't because I think it takes up too much space, but then pages always get pulled out by accident. If you guys are like me, then how do you fix the broken holes. I put tape over the holes and then re-hole punch them, but it doesn't work that well.
Yes, as long as I didn't finish the binder the day before.

so usually no lol
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Re: Binder Events

Post by ChimpLopez »

MadCow2357 wrote: February 26th, 2020, 6:08 am
ChimpLopez wrote: February 26th, 2020, 5:16 am Do you guys put sheet protectors on every page in your binder? I don't because I think it takes up too much space, but then pages always get pulled out by accident. If you guys are like me, then how do you fix the broken holes. I put tape over the holes and then re-hole punch them, but it doesn't work that well.
I sometimes use these:
https://www.amazon.com/Avery-Hole-Reinf ... B00006IBUZ
O shoot, I completely forgot about those lol. Might have to get some. Thanks!
I also go by Chino.
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Re: Binder Events

Post by Booknerd »

As someone who competes in both fossils and DP, I personally feel that the binders are getting unnecessary.

As an ID event, Fossils needs to have a binder. However, I do feel like the event has been only about knowing how you organized your binder and finding the answer as fast as possible on every station. I don't really feel like I've been learning about fossils... What could be interesting is if fossils is run without a binder. I do think it is possible, as long as they only include 10-20 fossils on the list. From my experience on fossil tests, there are a few specimens that appear on every test, and knowing more about those revolutionary specimens would be more educational than spending hours trying to find info on a really obscure specimen. Just a thought to make an ID event more applicable.

In DP, I think that the binder is unnecessary. Although my notes were packed with pictures and terms last year, I learned a lot about glaciers spending the time to design those notes to only include the bare items we need. My partner and I had learned about the broader concept and what it means, rather than just the basic facts. We learned how to identify and draw glaciers and how to calculate their speed. And our success in the event last year was because of how we studied and what we learned. But now, with DP being binder, I have been spending more time trying to find obscure wiki articles rather than trying to understand how things like ocean salinity and water density influence the planet. I don't feel like I'm learning anything. However, the decision to make DP binder opened up the new opportunity to make DP a station event, which can give Test Proctors/writers the opportunity to decide if a station or test event is the best for their given space and resources.

Overall, I think that binders make scioly more dependent on notes rather than what you actually know. But it does open up new doors of possibility.
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