User:Gz839918
Hi!! I'm a student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I enjoy physics and biology, but I also have background in various social sciences. My research interests include psychology and linguistics, but also acoustics. Despite my experience with physics events, I am still incredibly terrible at classical mechanics.
Science Olympiad is about people, not about winning! Indeed, science is about people, not winning, because science is the scaffolding of humanity—a skyscraper in ceaseless upward construction built to carry the common good of people. If you like helping people, so do I! So, if you'd like to talk about science or people or both, please don't hesitate to message me. (If you hesitate, you can still contact me anyways!)
Oh, and for those reading this for my credentials—I made it to states exactly once; I've been to nationals exactly once; I was the only senior member in my year to medal in nothing at nationals; and I've only competed for two years. You know—the usual thoroughfare.
gz839918 competed for Carmel High School. |
Division D
Some of the things I've volunteered for
Most of the images and graphics I use in test questions are my own. You may consider any content that I made in a test to be public domain, unless noted otherwise. Most images that I use in tests, but aren't my own, are already in the public domain anyways. If a test includes copyrighted content under fair use, I attribute the copyright holder to the best of my ability. (This has only happened once, for 2019-20 water quality.) If you don't know the copyright status of work used in my tests, ask me! I'm happy if the files sitting on my computer can be useful for somebody. Tests I've co-written are not necessarily fully in the public domain. As of 2020 October 25, the BEARSO test is not in the public domain. |
Errata
- Carmel High School tryouts: for 16, the correct answer was not in (A) through (E), although the set of correct answers is in I through IV.
- Raymond Park: in the solutions, Mach should be capitalized.
Did you uncover any typos or errors in one of my tests? If you'd like to discuss, I'd appreciate it if you could let me know! You can find me on my talk page, through private message, or one of the many other ways people can be found. The version of each test on the test exchange have as many errors correct as I can find; errata not listed on the test exchange are provided here above. You can also give anonymous feedback on my tests.
Data
Do FPOWs benefit from attending the NC State tournament?
In 2019, the average Div. C FPOW had a placement of 21.737 (= 1239 / 57) Interestingly, this means that FPOWs on average perform better than the average state-qualifying team in North Carolina (= 25.5). I assume no-shows for teams will be ranked below last place down to 50th when calculating my average for state-qualifying teams. This is to simplify calculation, but it is not unreasonable to believe that teams unable to participate in an event due to lack of interest or membership would probably worse in that particular event than teams who did participate. "Unreasonable," though, doesn't mean correct. It is likewise possible that FPOWs that do not opt to attend the state tournament will perform worse than the average state-qualifying team. However, the conclusion still remains true that of those who do compete, the FPOW program is valuable in offering a second opportunity to students who show promise in an event. Average FPOW scores for past years:
No-shows excluded in calculation of average; trial events included in average. |
What is typically tested on a good circuit lab test?
Not everybody agrees on what makes a test high quality, nor do I believe all the tests listed below are high quality. It turns out that tests from well-regarded tournaments may differ notably. (Did you notice that one-fourth of points for the Princeton circuit lab test comes from recall questions?) I struggled with op amps as a competitor, and after hearing from other students, it seems like two major stumbling points are op amps in addition to PN-junctions. If you want to practice these topics, the table can point you towards some tests that address these topics in particular. All of these tests below are from the 2018-19 season (not 2019-20).
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Do larger universities hold more teams per tournament?
No
Lounges, dining halls, non-lecture performance halls have been excluded if possible. Special department-only classrooms are included. |
How do SciOly alumni create a web presence?
1. For reasons I can't understand, Wix sites under the wixsite.com domain give a 404 error when no path follows the ".com"; that is, typing in "ucscioly.wixsite.com" without the quotes doesn't work. |