Science Olympiad at MIT Invitational 2019

[Unome]

As someone who let's say observed this trading, I can tell you that after the watermarking, people wanted to trade for MIT more and were willing to give much more in return. MIT was highly overrated and was requested and traded at a rate far greater than it would have been otherwise.

A benefit of this is that it allowed for people with say only one or two tests (MIT being one) to gain a lot more easily, but on the downside, after the test circulated (which it did) the trading season ended, making it harder for newer people.

I would say MIT was one of the most traded tests, directly because of watermarking.

That's approximately what I thought was the case. So it was in fact common for the watermarks to be removed?

No it was not. People traded with watermarks and nobody cared. After all, nobody would report to MIT.

I suppose that makes sense. Supply would be somewhat depressed, from the teams that were fearful of trading watermarked tests, but not enough to really prevent circulation.

[MIScioly1]

I'm not sure I understand why MIT prevents teams from circulating tests in the first place. I'm a believer in releasing tests publicly after competition so that all teams have the ability to benefit from them, rather than just those with other tests to trade. People come to competition for the entire experience, and tests are just one part of that. I don't think it decreases the demand from teams to attend the competition, and I think the reward of allowing more students to benefit far outweighs the risk.

[daydreamer0023]

I'm not sure I understand why MIT prevents teams from circulating tests in the first place. I'm a believer in releasing tests publicly after competition so that all teams have the ability to benefit from them, rather than just those with other tests to trade. People come to competition for the entire experience, and tests are just one part of that. I don't think it decreases the demand from teams to attend the competition, and I think the reward of allowing more students to benefit far outweighs the risk.

Their reasoning, for what I understand, is that they want people to come to their invitational and not just wait for tests to be released, then sweep them up. They want to reward teams who do come for the experience with this extra advantage. I can't say whether or not I agree with them, since I just found out about test trading last year, but that's what I noticed.

[WhatScience?]

I'm not sure I understand why MIT prevents teams from circulating tests in the first place. I'm a believer in releasing tests publicly after competition so that all teams have the ability to benefit from them, rather than just those with other tests to trade. People come to competition for the entire experience, and tests are just one part of that. I don't think it decreases the demand from teams to attend the competition, and I think the reward of allowing more students to benefit far outweighs the risk.

Their reasoning, for what I understand, is that they want people to come to their invitational and not just wait for tests to be released, then sweep them up. They want to reward teams who do come for the experience with this extra advantage. I can't say whether or not I agree with them, since I just found out about test trading last year, but that's what I noticed.

I think we can all understand what MIT did in theory but also realize that it didn't work out the way they wanted it to.

[knottingpurple]

I'm not sure I understand why MIT prevents teams from circulating tests in the first place. I'm a believer in releasing tests publicly after competition so that all teams have the ability to benefit from them, rather than just those with other tests to trade. People come to competition for the entire experience, and tests are just one part of that. I don't think it decreases the demand from teams to attend the competition, and I think the reward of allowing more students to benefit far outweighs the risk.

Their reasoning, for what I understand, is that they want people to come to their invitational and not just wait for tests to be released, then sweep them up. They want to reward teams who do come for the experience with this extra advantage. I can't say whether or not I agree with them, since I just found out about test trading last year, but that's what I noticed.

I think we can all understand what MIT did in theory but also realize that it didn't work out the way they wanted it to.

The thing about MIT is that MIT is in really high demand already. They don't increase the number of teams at their invitational by preventing any other form of access to the exams, because they were already reaching their cap on number of teams when the tests were getting traded. So it's not like there were people skipping their invitational because they knew they could easily get the tests - rather, there were people signing up to attend the invitational and being turned away. So it doesn't seem like they really need to increase their exclusiveness to attract more teams?

[wxyz]

When will we find out which schools are attending?

[Unome]

When will we find out which schools are attending?

Probably not for a while unfortunately. Over the past few years especially, MIT has not been very good with updating their website much at all.

[pikachu4919]

When will we find out which schools are attending?

Probably not for a while unfortunately. Over the past few years especially, MIT has not been very good with updating their website much at all.

I’m sure they have many other aspects of the tournament to be worrying about besides updating their website in addition to the responsibilities they have in the classroom as students.

[EastStroudsburg13]

When will we find out which schools are attending?

Probably not for a while unfortunately. Over the past few years especially, MIT has not been very good with updating their website much at all.

I’m sure they have many other aspects of the tournament to be worrying about besides updating their website in addition to the responsibilities they have in the classroom as students.

While I understand this perspective, I have two problems with it in this case. 1) If the delay is because they have yet to select teams through their lottery system, it is on them to generate that in a timely fashion, as they put that responsibility on themselves by installing a complex lottery system for team selection. 2) If they already have a selection of teams, it does not take very much effort to put the list, or a link to the list, on the website.

Having been a college student myself, I realize that college takes up a lot of time. But by the same token, part of running a successful tournament is pre-tournament communication, and a website is a big part of that. It's vital, especially in the first scenario above, for MIT to communicate to its teams so they have adequate time to plan for what is likely to be a pretty important and involved trip.

[GoldenKnight1]

While I understand this perspective, I have two problems with it in this case. 1) If the delay is because they have yet to select teams through their lottery system, it is on them to generate that in a timely fashion, as they put that responsibility on themselves by installing a complex lottery system for team selection.

I assume it is the same for all schools but those who were given 2 teams were informed on 9/22.