Disease Detectives B/C

[BrS]

Have you guys seen any history on your tests before such as who is the father of modern epidemiology and what not?

[maxxxxx]

Have you guys seen any history on your tests before such as who is the father of modern epidemiology and what not?

I've had it on a lot of invitationals before but never on a regionals or states test.

[yang573]

Have you guys seen any history on your tests before such as who is the father of modern epidemiology and what not?

I've had it on a lot of invitationals before but never on a regionals or states test.

The regionals test I did this year was exclusively on the London cholera outbreaks, and there was a question on the person (John Snow) who analysed and solved these outbreaks. However, this was only one question on the whole test.

[BrS]

What sort of questions generally appear on state level tests? I haven't done this event at the state level before, and my tournament is in next week.

[cemsc10]

For anyone who has states coming up, I will tell you what the Ohio State Disease Detectives B test was like.

First off, it was 15 pages long, with several pages of short answer, so therefore several teams did not finish. Time management was definitely important in this test. The first page was matching, but not the simple matching with basic terms such as fomite, vector, epidemic, endemic (like the terms everyone knows). These words were things such as prevalence, incidence, blinding, randomization, types of bias, and types of studies. Fairly easy, but something new in matching. Next page caught me off guard at first, as it had things like "number of people who died from influenza in 2015", and I thought we had to know the exact number. Luckily, you used same word bank and identified the rates such as mortality rate, case-fatality rate, point prevalence, etc. I believe the next page was fairly simple, with 5 scenarios where you simply circled whether or not bias was present. Next page was attack rate calculations, and a little more math. Somewhere in the test it talked about the things needed for prevalence, and like explaining each Criteria for Causation. There were lots of analyzing of studies, asking you to identify, explain benefits and non-benefits, explain why it was the study, etc. These problems alone took up three pages or so? There were also questions asking what prevention was being used, and advantages. As well as, explaining P values and risk ratios. I think the problem that made you think the most was one that had the following scenario. There was a test conducted for a type of disease, and anyone with .20 g/l or under was negative, while over was positive. They supplied the positive and negative predictive values, and then asked if you would change the testing amount to .10 g/l or .50 g/l, and why. You were asked to explain the effects of sensitivity and specificity in your answer, and I believe this problem took the longest but was definitely do-able.

We ended up placing first in Ohio DD , which was a shock considering it was our first year in Science Olympiad, but I think that even though the test was hard, it was a good thing as it made everyone think and made less room for ties.

If you have any questions, just reply to this.

[BrS]

What resources did you use to study?

For anyone who has states coming up, I will tell you what the Ohio State Disease Detectives B test was like.

First off, it was 15 pages long, with several pages of short answer, so therefore several teams did not finish. Time management was definitely important in this test. The first page was matching, but not the simple matching with basic terms such as fomite, vector, epidemic, endemic (like the terms everyone knows). These words were things such as prevalence, incidence, blinding, randomization, types of bias, and types of studies. Fairly easy, but something new in matching. Next page caught me off guard at first, as it had things like "number of people who died from influenza in 2015", and I thought we had to know the exact number. Luckily, you used same word bank and identified the rates such as mortality rate, case-fatality rate, point prevalence, etc. I believe the next page was fairly simple, with 5 scenarios where you simply circled whether or not bias was present. Next page was attack rate calculations, and a little more math. Somewhere in the test it talked about the things needed for prevalence, and like explaining each Criteria for Causation. There were lots of analyzing of studies, asking you to identify, explain benefits and non-benefits, explain why it was the study, etc. These problems alone took up three pages or so? There were also questions asking what prevention was being used, and advantages. As well as, explaining P values and risk ratios. I think the problem that made you think the most was one that had the following scenario. There was a test conducted for a type of disease, and anyone with .20 g/l or under was negative, while over was positive. They supplied the positive and negative predictive values, and then asked if you would change the testing amount to .10 g/l or .50 g/l, and why. You were asked to explain the effects of sensitivity and specificity in your answer, and I believe this problem took the longest but was definitely do-able.

We ended up placing first in Ohio DD , which was a shock considering it was our first year in Science Olympiad, but I think that even though the test was hard, it was a good thing as it made everyone think and made less room for ties.

If you have any questions, just reply to this.

[cemsc10]

What resources did you use to study?

For anyone who has states coming up, I will tell you what the Ohio State Disease Detectives B test was like.

First off, it was 15 pages long, with several pages of short answer, so therefore several teams did not finish. Time management was definitely important in this test. The first page was matching, but not the simple matching with basic terms such as fomite, vector, epidemic, endemic (like the terms everyone knows). These words were things such as prevalence, incidence, blinding, randomization, types of bias, and types of studies. Fairly easy, but something new in matching. Next page caught me off guard at first, as it had things like "number of people who died from influenza in 2015", and I thought we had to know the exact number. Luckily, you used same word bank and identified the rates such as mortality rate, case-fatality rate, point prevalence, etc. I believe the next page was fairly simple, with 5 scenarios where you simply circled whether or not bias was present. Next page was attack rate calculations, and a little more math. Somewhere in the test it talked about the things needed for prevalence, and like explaining each Criteria for Causation. There were lots of analyzing of studies, asking you to identify, explain benefits and non-benefits, explain why it was the study, etc. These problems alone took up three pages or so? There were also questions asking what prevention was being used, and advantages. As well as, explaining P values and risk ratios. I think the problem that made you think the most was one that had the following scenario. There was a test conducted for a type of disease, and anyone with .20 g/l or under was negative, while over was positive. They supplied the positive and negative predictive values, and then asked if you would change the testing amount to .10 g/l or .50 g/l, and why. You were asked to explain the effects of sensitivity and specificity in your answer, and I believe this problem took the longest but was definitely do-able.

We ended up placing first in Ohio DD , which was a shock considering it was our first year in Science Olympiad, but I think that even though the test was hard, it was a good thing as it made everyone think and made less room for ties.

If you have any questions, just reply to this.

Well, I used quite a lot! First off, I took every single B/C test in scioly wiki. I also read two epidemiology textbooks, and recorded notes. I made five powerpoints, one with test notes, a book notes one, one that was used when my sister (former disease person) taught me, etc. I also exchanged tests, and took those. Also, I took all the tests that the high school had archived, which were about 30 or so just from there. Lastly, all resources on soinc for disease were used. There is probably more that I did, but I cannot think of them on the spot. But in general, I did 42+ practice tests which I think help the most, as there are always questions repeated on tests. This is for Div B though, so your test is probably going to be harder, but usually same concepts somewhat! Hope it helped!

[dcrxcode]

What resources did you use to study?

For anyone who has states coming up, I will tell you what the Ohio State Disease Detectives B test was like.

First off, it was 15 pages long, with several pages of short answer, so therefore several teams did not finish. Time management was definitely important in this test. The first page was matching, but not the simple matching with basic terms such as fomite, vector, epidemic, endemic (like the terms everyone knows). These words were things such as prevalence, incidence, blinding, randomization, types of bias, and types of studies. Fairly easy, but something new in matching. Next page caught me off guard at first, as it had things like "number of people who died from influenza in 2015", and I thought we had to know the exact number. Luckily, you used same word bank and identified the rates such as mortality rate, case-fatality rate, point prevalence, etc. I believe the next page was fairly simple, with 5 scenarios where you simply circled whether or not bias was present. Next page was attack rate calculations, and a little more math. Somewhere in the test it talked about the things needed for prevalence, and like explaining each Criteria for Causation. There were lots of analyzing of studies, asking you to identify, explain benefits and non-benefits, explain why it was the study, etc. These problems alone took up three pages or so? There were also questions asking what prevention was being used, and advantages. As well as, explaining P values and risk ratios. I think the problem that made you think the most was one that had the following scenario. There was a test conducted for a type of disease, and anyone with .20 g/l or under was negative, while over was positive. They supplied the positive and negative predictive values, and then asked if you would change the testing amount to .10 g/l or .50 g/l, and why. You were asked to explain the effects of sensitivity and specificity in your answer, and I believe this problem took the longest but was definitely do-able.

We ended up placing first in Ohio DD , which was a shock considering it was our first year in Science Olympiad, but I think that even though the test was hard, it was a good thing as it made everyone think and made less room for ties.

If you have any questions, just reply to this.

Well, I used quite a lot! First off, I took every single B/C test in scioly wiki. I also read two epidemiology textbooks, and recorded notes. I made five powerpoints, one with test notes, a book notes one, one that was used when my sister (former disease person) taught me, etc. I also exchanged tests, and took those. Also, I took all the tests that the high school had archived, which were about 30 or so just from there. Lastly, all resources on soinc for disease were used. There is probably more that I did, but I cannot think of them on the spot. But in general, I did 42+ practice tests which I think help the most, as there are always questions repeated on tests. This is for Div B though, so your test is probably going to be harder, but usually same concepts somewhat! Hope it helped!

Congrats on your placing at Ohio state - what an accomplishment, especially considering the competitiveness of SciOly in Ohio.

What textbooks did you use to study?

[cemsc10]

What resources did you use to study?

Well, I used quite a lot! First off, I took every single B/C test in scioly wiki. I also read two epidemiology textbooks, and recorded notes. I made five powerpoints, one with test notes, a book notes one, one that was used when my sister (former disease person) taught me, etc. I also exchanged tests, and took those. Also, I took all the tests that the high school had archived, which were about 30 or so just from there. Lastly, all resources on soinc for disease were used. There is probably more that I did, but I cannot think of them on the spot. But in general, I did 42+ practice tests which I think help the most, as there are always questions repeated on tests. This is for Div B though, so your test is probably going to be harder, but usually same concepts somewhat! Hope it helped!

Congrats on your placing at Ohio state - what an accomplishment, especially considering the competitiveness of SciOly in Ohio.

What textbooks did you use to study?

Thank you! And I used this textbook called Epidemiology for public health practice as my main resource as it was very informative. I also used the online CDC books, such as "Principles of Epidemiology in Public Health Practice", which is free. I think I skimmed a couple of pdf books I found my simply looking up the topic and then pdf, but I did not record the titles of those.

[Private Wang Fire]

Principles of Epi is probably the best book to read if you only had time for one, plus most of the definitions/methods of calculating things and names for statistics will be straight outta there as well since it's from the CDC.

For harder disease tests at state/national level time management is probably the most important part, working fast is really important otherwise you won't finish and miss easy points.