Scioly.org

Mr. Chalker,
First of all, I apologize for the long silence: I haven't checked the site for a long time (got caught up in school-work).

Also, I want to thank you for soliciting our input. A few years ago, when I found several errors on the national astronomy test and wanted to inform someone about it, I was told that I should not contact the event supervisor because "they don't want to hear from students."

I do agree that test-writing is a challenging task in itself, and harder than I thought (I just wrote trial tests for two events for our team, and it took me an incredible amount of time- to write and grade). I too had to reference Google, when some answers seemed to make sense but deviated from what I expected. I also realize that It's About Time only allows a short time for the written portion, thus limiting the number and type of questions.

Regarding which questions to ask: perhaps as someone suggested already, the event could be narrowed down to be more specific. In that case, teams could concentrate on particular sub-areas. As the rules stated now, I think the only reasonable way is to ask questions that require understanding of the subject, not facts about a wide range of topics. For example, in last year's test, such questions included "how many seconds does it take for light to travel 1 AU?" or "at what latitude will the sun appear directly overhead at noon on the June solstice?" My favorite question on the test I gave was "what will happen to the sidereal and solar times if the earth (a) sped up, (b) slowed down, (c) moved with the same speed but in the other direction." It's not an essay question but it requires understanding of the topic.

If you would like to see my test (just for curiosity) I can email it to you.

Has anyone found the times on the time trials provided by the soinc site to be incorrect? We are finding that in the upper ranges of times are coming up around 2-3 seconds short.

tlake570 wrote:Has anyone found the times on the time trials provided by the soinc site to be incorrect? We are finding that in the upper ranges of times are coming up around 2-3 seconds short.

I seem to recall hearing about this problem last year. It was a platform issue, if I recall correctly. What are you running them on?

We have been running the times on two different laptops with window's media player. Both came up with the same times.

tlake570 wrote:Has anyone found the times on the time trials provided by the soinc site to be incorrect? We are finding that in the upper ranges of times are coming up around 2-3 seconds short.

Yes, windows media player plays them too fast. I ended up installing real player to practice. Unfortunately, you have no control of the software event supervisors use.

So does the any judge know about this to make sure we have acurate times? And can we fix the Window Media Player to not run fast so that we don't have to get a new program and what not?

Swimmer1313 wrote:So does the any judge know about this to make sure we have acurate times? And can we fix the Window Media Player to not run fast so that we don't have to get a new program and what not?

I think all you can do is make sure the local tournament organizers are aware of the problem. I don't think you can fix Windows Media Player. RealPlayer is a free download.

Swimmer1313 wrote:So does the any judge know about this to make sure we have acurate times?

Any good judge should have tested to computer file, as many of us have, before the competition to ensure it works correctly. If a judge did not take the time to do that, you will probably have other things to worry about with this judge besides just bad time trials.

rockhound wrote:

Swimmer1313 wrote:So does the any judge know about this to make sure we have acurate times?

Any good judge should have tested to computer file, as many of us have, before the competition to ensure it works correctly. If a judge did not take the time to do that, you will probably have other things to worry about with this judge besides just bad time trials.

Sure, but bad judges are a reality we have to deal with. At least the time trial part is fixable.

rockhound wrote:
Any good judge should have tested to computer file, as many of us have, before the competition to ensure it works correctly. If a judge did not take the time to do that, you will probably have other things to worry about with this judge besides just bad time trials.

For at least half of the invitationals last year the event supervisors played it with windows media player, even though there was a "clarification" on the national so website. I also tried to talk to some of them before the competition asking to run the sound files with real player, but only the regional supervisor actually changed her software.