Hardest Science Olympiad Event, in your opinion?

[JavaScriptCoder]

I don't know, because its my first year. If you define the result ranked by average questions wrong, that might work, but I can't find statistics about that. If you define it by polling, then... well, I will be making a poll for subjective ratings. As there was *a little* inherent bias against 8th graders participating in C in my school, I was limited to two events. Of those, i thought materials science was hard, and got 3rd, and I thought chem lab was easy, and got 3rd. So welp...

Well hard events are hard for everyone and easy events are easy for everyone balancing out. Consistently could be used to measure difficulty (in which case builds and maybe inquiry would win). Average questions wrong really can vary depending on which competition (like MIT vs regionals) and different events are well different. In Fermi for example getting 60-70 percent of the points is usually considered excellent while anything less then 50 percent is usually bad (again depends on competition but this I feel is pretty standard in almost all competitions). On the other hand in some tests near 100 scores can possibly be achieved, while in competitors like MIT 30 percent is pretty good. (Speaking from my own matsci experience). I doubt difficulty of events can really be measured accurately, and difficulty is more of an opinion where it's usually skewed toward the events the people do.

"Consistently could be used to measure difficulty (in which case builds and maybe inquiry would win)" do you mean that builds/inquiry might be better than labs because that's a sentence fragment and I don't really get it.

[you went to the MIT SciOly regional?! so pro...]

[pb5754]

I don't know, because its my first year. If you define the result ranked by average questions wrong, that might work, but I can't find statistics about that. If you define it by polling, then... well, I will be making a poll for subjective ratings. As there was *a little* inherent bias against 8th graders participating in C in my school, I was limited to two events. Of those, i thought materials science was hard, and got 3rd, and I thought chem lab was easy, and got 3rd. So welp...

Well hard events are hard for everyone and easy events are easy for everyone balancing out. Consistently could be used to measure difficulty (in which case builds and maybe inquiry would win). Average questions wrong really can vary depending on which competition (like MIT vs regionals) and different events are well different. In Fermi for example getting 60-70 percent of the points is usually considered excellent while anything less then 50 percent is usually bad (again depends on competition but this I feel is pretty standard in almost all competitions). On the other hand in some tests near 100 scores can possibly be achieved, while in competitors like MIT 30 percent is pretty good. (Speaking from my own matsci experience). I doubt difficulty of events can really be measured accurately, and difficulty is more of an opinion where it's usually skewed toward the events the people do.

"Consistently could be used to measure difficulty (in which case builds and maybe inquiry would win)" do you mean that builds/inquiry might be better than labs because that's a sentence fragment and I don't really get it.

[you went to the MIT SciOly regional?! so pro...]

I think he meant the MIT invitational.

[Name]

"Consistently could be used to measure difficulty (in which case builds and maybe inquiry would win)" do you mean that builds/inquiry might be better than labs because that's a sentence fragment and I don't really get it.

[you went to the MIT SciOly regional?! so pro...]

I meant MIT invite (is there a regionals?)
Difficulty of an event isn't necessary "better." All events are already hard and take immense effort to do well, especially against top tier teams. I personally view WIDI as probably the hardest event I've done (however I wasn't given time to practice). Given enough practice almost any event can become "easy." When I said "hard" I meant personally I feel inquiry is incredibly hard to consistently place in every time (For at least our team, our inquiry has been extremely inconsistent but that might be because we as a team are inconsistent overall lol). Just because it's harder to place consistently doesn't make it "better." While for me at least, while WIDI has been "hard," that doesn't mean I learned as much from it, as matsci, and I definitely view amount learned as how "good" the event is. But that can definitely vary. If someone puts in little effort into matsci and puts in alot to WIDI, they could learn more skills in WIDI, making WIDI the more beneficial event. How beneficial a event is really depends on the person and thier interests (although I really don't believe you can learn anything from game on lol)

[JavaScriptCoder]

"Consistently could be used to measure difficulty (in which case builds and maybe inquiry would win)" do you mean that builds/inquiry might be better than labs because that's a sentence fragment and I don't really get it.

[you went to the MIT SciOly regional?! so pro...]

I meant MIT invite (is there a regionals?)
Difficulty of an event isn't necessary "better." All events are already hard and take immense effort to do well, especially against top tier teams. I personally view WIDI as probably the hardest event I've done (however I wasn't given time to practice). Given enough practice almost any event can become "easy." When I said "hard" I meant personally I feel inquiry is incredibly hard to consistently place in every time (For at least our team, our inquiry has been extremely inconsistent but that might be because we as a team are inconsistent overall lol). Just because it's harder to place consistently doesn't make it "better." While for me at least, while WIDI has been "hard," that doesn't mean I learned as much from it, as matsci, and I definitely view amount learned as how "good" the event is. But that can definitely vary. If someone puts in little effort into matsci and puts in alot to WIDI, they could learn more skills in WIDI, making WIDI the more beneficial event. How beneficial a event is really depends on the person and thier interests (although I really don't believe you can learn anything from game on lol)

Opinions expressed on this site are not official; the only place for official rules changes and FAQs is soinc.org.

Well, I don't know about any invitationals within 1 hour of us (outside of Chicago, St. Louis, Indianapolis, all of Iowa, most of Kentucky, etc.) and have never been informed of any. I agree with the game on thing, use a real language like Java instead of making it a science based Scratch program that's hastily improvised and awards points for random features. I'm one of the top ranked coders not only at our school but also in our city on websites like Codewars, Hackerrank, and Leetcode, but i'm never. touching. that. thing. washes mouth

EDIT REASON: Gave away precise location, school, and other stuff. look away...

[PM2017]

"Consistently could be used to measure difficulty (in which case builds and maybe inquiry would win)" do you mean that builds/inquiry might be better than labs because that's a sentence fragment and I don't really get it.

[you went to the MIT SciOly regional?! so pro...]

I meant MIT invite (is there a regionals?)
Difficulty of an event isn't necessary "better." All events are already hard and take immense effort to do well, especially against top tier teams. I personally view WIDI as probably the hardest event I've done (however I wasn't given time to practice). Given enough practice almost any event can become "easy." When I said "hard" I meant personally I feel inquiry is incredibly hard to consistently place in every time (For at least our team, our inquiry has been extremely inconsistent but that might be because we as a team are inconsistent overall lol). Just because it's harder to place consistently doesn't make it "better." While for me at least, while WIDI has been "hard," that doesn't mean I learned as much from it, as matsci, and I definitely view amount learned as how "good" the event is. But that can definitely vary. If someone puts in little effort into matsci and puts in alot to WIDI, they could learn more skills in WIDI, making WIDI the more beneficial event. How beneficial a event is really depends on the person and thier interests (although I really don't believe you can learn anything from game on lol)

Opinions expressed on this site are not official; the only place for official rules changes and FAQs is soinc.org.

Well, I don't know about any invitationals within 1 hour of us (outside of Chicago, St. Louis, Indianapolis, all of Iowa, most of Kentucky, etc.) and have never been informed of any. I agree with the game on thing, use a real language like Java instead of making it a science based Scratch program that's hastily improvised and awards points for random features. I'm one of the top ranked coders not only at our school but also in our city on websites like Codewars, Hackerrank, and Leetcode, but i'm never. touching. that. thing. washes mouth

EDIT REASON: Gave away precise location, school, and other stuff. look away...

As much as everyone trashes Scratch, it's actually a really powerful tool for education. Really, the only difference between using Scratch and another language like Python or JS is the fact that you have to pay attention to syntax. Scratch eliminates the need to memorize the minutia, and makes it much easier to actually achieve the purpose of doing something like Game On -- to learn the way computer logic works, in its simplest form.

Also, you have to remember, SciOly events only have 50 minutes per test. I don't think you can develop an entire game within that timeframe using other languages, and even if you can, most people doing Game On are not going to be as amazing with computer science as you are.

[DarthBuilder]

I meant MIT invite (is there a regionals?)
Difficulty of an event isn't necessary "better." All events are already hard and take immense effort to do well, especially against top tier teams. I personally view WIDI as probably the hardest event I've done (however I wasn't given time to practice). Given enough practice almost any event can become "easy." When I said "hard" I meant personally I feel inquiry is incredibly hard to consistently place in every time (For at least our team, our inquiry has been extremely inconsistent but that might be because we as a team are inconsistent overall lol). Just because it's harder to place consistently doesn't make it "better." While for me at least, while WIDI has been "hard," that doesn't mean I learned as much from it, as matsci, and I definitely view amount learned as how "good" the event is. But that can definitely vary. If someone puts in little effort into matsci and puts in alot to WIDI, they could learn more skills in WIDI, making WIDI the more beneficial event. How beneficial a event is really depends on the person and thier interests (although I really don't believe you can learn anything from game on lol)

Agreed, it really is a useful tool especially when I was younger. It gives you a small taste of coding imo.

I think the hardest event for me was probably Heredity (I think that’s what it was called for Div. B). I have never seen any of the material in my life but in my Bio class I was the one who knew most of the stuff on genetics.

I personally think Mission is the hardest in general. All that time put in it and imagining if something went wrong.

Opinions expressed on this site are not official; the only place for official rules changes and FAQs is soinc.org.

Well, I don't know about any invitationals within 1 hour of us (outside of Chicago, St. Louis, Indianapolis, all of Iowa, most of Kentucky, etc.) and have never been informed of any. I agree with the game on thing, use a real language like Java instead of making it a science based Scratch program that's hastily improvised and awards points for random features. I'm one of the top ranked coders not only at our school but also in our city on websites like Codewars, Hackerrank, and Leetcode, but i'm never. touching. that. thing. washes mouth

EDIT REASON: Gave away precise location, school, and other stuff. look away...

As much as everyone trashes Scratch, it's actually a really powerful tool for education. Really, the only difference between using Scratch and another language like Python or JS is the fact that you have to pay attention to syntax. Scratch eliminates the need to memorize the minutia, and makes it much easier to actually achieve the purpose of doing something like Game On -- to learn the way computer logic works, in its simplest form.

Also, you have to remember, SciOly events only have 50 minutes per test. I don't think you can develop an entire game within that timeframe using other languages, and even if you can, most people doing Game On are not going to be as amazing with computer science as you are.

[MadCow2357]

Mystery also seems pretty hard, the element of surprise makes it super easy to bomb the event. You could prep for hours, but if you show up at competition day and you build say a bridge a little too long, and it fails, you cost your team a lottttt of points.

Mystery Architecture is why Barrington MS lost to us (GMS) again this year. They got 28th, while my partner and placed 3rd.

[LionfishFilet]

Personally, I think it's Wright Stuff(B),

Participating in wright stuff is not only a challenge to the mind and the hands but also a testament of dignity and endurance.

Working months upon months to dial in just the perfect setup, just for some dumb incidents to ruin all the effort.

Study events only feed on your mind, these planes feed on your soul.

[PM2017]

Personally, I think it's Wright Stuff(B),

Participating in wright stuff is not only a challenge to the mind and the hands but also a testament of dignity and endurance.

Working months upon months to dial in just the perfect setup, just for some dumb incidents to ruin all the effort.

Study events only feed on your mind, these planes feed on your soul.

Yeah, aviation events can go wrong so quickly...

[19alekb]

I feel like that any event in which there's a lot of ways a test writer could interrupt the rules(as in what to put on the test) is a very hard event because you just have to learn everything.