National test discussion

[boomvroomshroom]

I think everyone should not be literally asking Chalker for every single score available. You noscoped the guy, okay fine. If the nats people all decide to release it it's on them But honestly, it is not yo, and should not be, essential to see the scores for everything (even builds). Sure, some people like AIRHORNS for motivation, but please try to be reasonable when asking Chalker stuff, as we all know he's a busy noscoper. . Just keep to the discussions of what the tests were like please, including whether or not Doritos and Mtn Dew were distributed .

Wait a minute. There are 46 events. 4+6=10. The national tournament will have started 10 days ago as of May 24. 24 is a multiple of 3. Triangles have 3 sides. Fermi Questions confirmed.

And some more edits.

Was that you who "MLGified" the original post?

This was the 31st National Tournament. 31 is on the order of magnitude of 10^1. Take away the 1, and you have 3 left. Triangles have 3 sides.
Fermi Questions confirmed.

[trentomology1999]

Meteorology was great though. As long as you studied everything on the rules sheet thoroughly, it was pretty easy. I liked how they had a survey at the end which asked questions such as: the difficulty of the test, too many, too little or just the right amount of questions, and any comments that you had.

I disagree; easy tests are never good. It may have did a decent job of covering most of the topics in the rules, but the complexity of the majority of the questions were about what someone should expect from an invitational or regional test. I don't know how many total points there was on that test, but I do remember there being less than 70 questions (which is nothing when considering the general rule of thumb for the lengths of tests (twice as many points as the number of teams at that competition)).

I agree with John, the both of us were complaining constantly about the low difficulty of the test as we were taking it. I have noticed nobody has mentioned how horrible the supervisor was. For one thing, he somehow had the idea to have test graders grade the test at a table right next to people taking the test. The thing is, the key was on a computer screen that could be easily be seen by anyone in the area, which there was. John and I could rotate our heads 90 degrees and be able to see all the answers.

That wasn't the only problem. The supervisor also was horrible at answering questions. John and I asked 2 questions about vague directions on the test (another problem) and the guy answered our questions by just restating what we asked. For example, we asked if the supervisor wanted us, on a question asking for a description on how certain air masses form, to answer in relation to the US or in general fashion. The supervisor said "You could answer it in relation to the US or just in general " and left.

I was really disappointed in this supervisor and his test.

[asthedeer]

Don't think anyone has posted anything about CJAP yet.
It was a REALLY REALLY good test, except for one question, although it was really short (25 questions). Although it varies widely, on average, I consider CJAP tests between 25 to 40 questions decent. In this case, 25 was on the short side, especially since there was Benedict's (an extra reagent), a magnet, thermometer, and a flame test. Having the extra stuff was great, because it would stretch our normal water, HCl, NaOH capacities a little without over doing it. Before Nationals, at our last practice, my partner said something like, "It"ll be the perfect test if they give us ONE reagent and only one." The test was very well written; it covered everything that we had done/practiced/learned about for CJAP. The answers were "write the number in the box" without having to justify or anything, which my partner (knittingfrenzy18) and I though slightly weird because of causing ties (but it also made things much simpler!). We were able to answer (with an observation) 23 questions (the 24th one had an observation which I ran out of time to get). The one we didn't understand/get, though, was a question along the lines of "Was there a gas emitted, and if so, what was the pH of the gas?" This was the only time either of us has experienced this type of question and we thought this to be weird. We haven't been able to get a satisfactory answer as to how we should have answered it. (Do any of you science people out there know how to do this??) Overall, it was a WONDERFUL wonderful test and I was really happy with it.

The procters were really nice too- they gave us very specific instructions on what to do. We weren't supposed to get the temperatures of the reagents, apparently because she didn't want us contaminating her samples. (Huh? Don't you pour the reagents out to measure temperature? Err I guess normal people don't do that....). So if you're out there- THANK YOU for a great and well run event!!

Anyone out there who has raw scores for CJAP, I'd love to see them. (We placed 7th...one short from medaling.) I'd really enjoy being able to see how close we were to getting a medal! Thanks!!

[UnprunedShrub]

Dynamic Planet (4)
I wasn't too pleased with this test. I think the guy that wrote it underestimated just how in depth we all studied for it and made the test was ridiculously basic. While there weren't bad questions, they just weren't nationals level. If the questions aren't going to be difficult, at least make a bunch of them so that there's some sort of way to differentiate the top teams. Instead, there were 12 MC questions at one station... in 11 minutes. Not even close to the kind of quality/difficulty I was expecting at nationals. I felt the test turned into who made the least number of mistakes rather than who actually understood oceanography the best. Yes, if it's so easy you shouldn't make stupid mistakes. But I also feel that there should be more difficult content to really separate the best teams.

3/10 (The buoyancy section was awesome)

Geologic Mapping (6)
This was more like what I was expecting from a nationals level test. My partner and I split it up and worked individually for the entire time, and still probably left 30% at least blank. The problems were a wide variety of difficulties as well as an impossible amount of questions. I doubt anybody finished, and that's okay because it's nationals and you shouldn't be getting 100% on the test. Instead, the best team will answer the most questions and will win. The hands-on maps were a great touch, and the problems were extremely well-written. I really hope the same person proctors next year, but I also hope there are some more mathematical calculation problems with strike/dip etc. rather than just the straight map analysis.

10/10

I agree with the assessment of the Dynamic Planet test. My partner and I got 3rd place, and I feel like all of the top 15ish teams would have had very close scores. I also think that "stations" should not mean "lets just print out a regular test and put the pages on different tables". Hopefully they can incorporate some level of interactivity into the test next year, although that may be tough to do considering the limited time on each station. In addition, not all topics stated in the rules were covered (there was no coral reef stuff), and they decided to add some things not even mentioned in the rules (water masses).

[varunscs11]

The nationals test does not have to cover everything that is written on the rules. For example, Green Generation did not cover Stewardship of Aquatic Ecosystems, Nuclear Pollution, etc. Also since the proctor of each event writes the rules (typically), it is up to their interpretation and as long as it follows the spirit of the rules it is allowed.

[SOnerd]

I forgot to ask earlier, for those of you who took the Entomology B test at Nats, what did you get for the question asking what part of the wood the termite eats?
My partner and I put cellulose, which I'm not sure was correct.

[UTF-8 U+6211 U+662F]

For those of you who did Fossils, how hard was the test?

[varunscs11]

Not too sure for Div B because I'm pretty sure the tests are different

[JoJoKeKe]

For those of you who did Fossils, how hard was the test?

I'm in Division B and did fossils. However, I don't know how accurate my recollection of the event is since I got 37th place... (I did all studying by myself using online resources; no present coach!)

The test seemed to be a good amount of difficulty. However, it was the time that definitely got me...

Some of the difficult questions pertained to:

Identifying 10 dinosaurs... in 2 minutes.

Mosasauridae - had to know some of the ecology and information of this group.

Fenestrae, branching, and massive - I have no clue why I didn't even study this.

A station asking which sample was a worm burrow. (None of them looked like a worm burrow!)

Questions similar to: Are all these organisms in phylum Bryozoa? -- difficult because there would on occasion be only one organism closely related but not in Bryozoa.

Questions asking you to describe trilobite eye structure of samples (schizochroal, etc.)
--------------------------------
That seemed to be the gist of the test. Other standard classification questions, ecology, etc. A great level of difficulty! I think it's really going to help me prepare for next year.

[RontgensWallaby]

I forgot to ask earlier, for those of you who took the Entomology B test at Nats, what did you get for the question asking what part of the wood the termite eats?
My partner and I put cellulose, which I'm not sure was correct.

We put cellulose as well. It was the only specific thing we could get from our book, and I suppose it seemed to be a correct answer because there is that special part of the digestion of cellulose by termites.