Entomology B/C

[SOnerd]

Anyone here done a Bio ID event at Nats?
What is the test like?? Do the proctors make sure to stay within the rules?

[chalker]

Anyone here done a Bio ID event at Nats?
What is the test like?? Do the proctors make sure to stay within the rules?

If there is one thing you can generally count on, it's for the national event supervisors to stick to the rules. Typically they are the ones that wrote them....

[SOnerd]

Anyone here done a Bio ID event at Nats?
What is the test like?? Do the proctors make sure to stay within the rules?

If there is one thing you can generally count on, it's for the national event supervisors to stick to the rules. Typically they are the ones that wrote them....

Okay thanks!!
That was a really stupid newbie question

[SOnerd]

Hey what do you guys think will be on the National test?

[ceg7654]

Hey what do you guys think will be on the National test?

I'm not going to Nats but I'm pretty sure they'll have some tricky ID ones, a good amount of larvae to ID and answer questions about, and a dichotomous key section. In my opinion, if a test includes those, it's a pretty good Ento test. And they'll have the usual random questions on ecology, environmental/economic impact, etc.

[SOnerd]

So what did you guys think of the Nats test?

[henceagrin36]

So what did you guys think of the Nats test?

Honestly, I was quite disappointed. I was lucky enough to survive great regionals and state entomology tests with actual specimens, and I was hoping to get wrecked by the nationals test. I did forestry at nationals last year, so I was expecting pretty much the same thing: a hard, torturous test. I felt like the nationals test was too simple and too easy - once I identified the specimen, all I had to do was look for the answers in the field guide (I feel bad for the teams that didn't have the Audubon guide). The specimens were good, but they were so tiny. My partner and I had to stick our faces and hand lens in the alcohol in order to see them properly. It was a good test, but I don't think it was good enough to be nationals quality. I was really expecting a huge challenge, but I didn't get it. I was ready to put up a good fight. Although my partner and I placed at nationals, I still feel like it wasn't deserved - I feel like there were too many possible ties that the rankings were not accurate. My state and regional tests were harder than nationals, unfortunately.
So overall, the test was good, but not good enough.

[ptkid]

I have the same feelings as Henceagrin36. I prepared so much for the national tournament and was disappointed by all the Audubon questions and pretty easy insect specimens. And they were all tiny, but that was fine. I could have walked in there with how much I studied for an invitational last December and I would have still gotten the same place I got (7th). We were okay with our placing mainly because I'm pretty sure there were a lot of ties and that the test wasn't hard and didn't properly measure how much teams prepared. All teams were finishing each station very early.

[Shreyas1030]

The B test was very easy as well. However, there was a lot of anatomy, a topic that is rarely covered in the Audubon. I feel like our regionals competition was brutal compared to the nationals test. I received 2nd at state, and 10th at nationals. This was my 1st national tournament ever and I was expecting a brutal test with barely enough time to finish it. The test was the exact opposite. I had around 1.5 minutes for each station to go over answers. To be honest, I barely studied entomology since state, and was quite surprised that I pulled a 10th at nationals. Also, it was very painful to look at the tiny specimen in alcohol. Our hand lens was not very powerful, and gave us nearly no help. However, I did like seeing that each identification station had real specimen along with pictures. That was a real + in the test, but overall, I believe it was WAY too easy for a nationals competition. I hope we don't see anything like that in the future.

[mk3966]

I actually kinda liked the tiny specimen... They were at least a small challenge in relation to the rest of the test. The two huge issues were that they used the most straight-forward specimens (i.e. the horntail and swallowtail) and the questions were copied straight out of the Audubon. I could've identified most of those just by seeing the questions. If I had taken an extra five minutes studying mouthparts I think we could have taken first. One question I still don't know the answer to: Isoptera lack an ?????? We put ovipositor because it's the only thing that starts with a vowel that makes any sense. Anyone know the answer there?