Fast Facts B

[Unome]

Unrelated: has anyone had experience scoring this event? I could imagine this being a nightmare; constantly having to Google up student responses you didn't anticipate to see if they get credit, arguing over whether or not to accept a particular answer, etc. Unless the categories are very limited (like, Elements, for example) it must be impossible to create a reliable answer key.

I have no direct experience, but I've heard from the teams that scored the event at two invitationals in the area that it's very difficult. For both tournaments (FSA with 24 teams and Chattahoochee with 36) the event supervisors brought 5 or 6 graders.

[freed2003]

Does anyone have any tips on studying for fast facts? I'm currently in the midst of creating lists a-z of different categories but that take a lot of time and I would have to go back and memorize all of them.

[snorrio]

Does anyone have any tips on studying for fast facts? I'm currently in the midst of creating lists a-z of different categories but that take a lot of time and I would have to go back and memorize all of them.

I suggest making and taking practice tests.

[MMP01]

I have just helped administer and score Fast Facts. easy to administer, NOT easy to score and took us all day. It was run at 8am with all teams present, so it was administered just once, which I found to be great. it took us until 3pm to finish grading, we did take a short lunch break.
It was very helpful to have 4 graders (more may be better) and the event supervisor had each person working on one specific column for consistency. We double checked each persons totals as well, finding some addition/counting errors so it is a good thing to double check each other. we collaborated a lot on what to accept as correct answers as well as Googled anything that was in question.
a few things i found:
the event supervisor must decide how detailed or broad they are looking for. if your category is not specific then it can be left to interpretation.
our event supervisor took the time to explain to the kids what she was looking for before the event started and some tips and reminders
the biggest area we weren't sure about and had to make a decision on was what happens when a student puts down more than one answer in a block and one of those answers is correct but another is incorrect? no half credits can be given so we chose not to give credit at all for that block if any of the answers were incorrect.

I will be running this event in about a month so if there are any other tips and tricks or any comments on the above please let me know.
thanks!

[chick-fil-a for life]

What general topics do you think we must know for sure? I haven't really studied at all.

[Skink]

My recommendation to participants and supervisors is to start a list (spreadsheet, Google doc, whatever) of topics followed by, alphabetically, possible answers. The best-prepared teams will have an answer on hand for as many letters for as many topics as possible. Similarly, the best-prepared tests will have more diverse selections of topics. Biology, earth science, chemistry, physics, as well as technology and engineering should all get some representation. I think it's fair to expect most tests to ask for chemical elements simply because it's a good fit here, but, beyond that, I'd expect (or hope for) a little creativity or bizarre categories. On a test I wrote, I think I put one strange (but fair) category on each grid.

To supervisors: making the list is a good idea for you, too, if you want specific topics because fitting it all together is a real jigsaw. What I thought would be a 90min activity turned into twice that when I realized (what we already knew) that certain letters are far more common in English than others. RSTLNE and all that...

[k1213693]

Elements and human body parts or organs are usually pretty common, though I have seen scientific instruments and animals or plants(often of a specific region) on multiple tests.

[smolblob]

Elements and human body parts or organs are usually pretty common, though I have seen scientific instruments and animals or plants(often of a specific region) on multiple tests.

agree, especially at the invites. however, our regionals ff tests were unreasonably hard, with maybe like three topics total that people had actually studied for/were prepared for. the rest was mostly just luck/other events/something that you remembered from the back of your brain from like 2394820384 years ago

[CVMSAvalacheStudent]

Elements and human body parts or organs are usually pretty common, though I have seen scientific instruments and animals or plants(often of a specific region) on multiple tests.

agree, especially at the invites. however, our regionals ff tests were unreasonably hard, with maybe like three topics total that people had actually studied for/were prepared for. the rest was mostly just luck/other events/something that you remembered from the back of your brain from like 2394820384 years ago

Invitationals not invites.

[ff]

Elements and human body parts or organs are usually pretty common, though I have seen scientific instruments and animals or plants(often of a specific region) on multiple tests.

agree, especially at the invites. however, our regionals ff tests were unreasonably hard, with maybe like three topics total that people had actually studied for/were prepared for. the rest was mostly just luck/other events/something that you remembered from the back of your brain from like 2394820384 years ago

Invitationals not invites.

Do you guys think that foods such as vegetables, and fruits could be tested?? Thanks!