Poorly Run Event Stories

[dxu46]

Ok, this won't sound bad, but Thermodynamics was terrible at our states. For one, the test and the device part was split into two periods, so I couldn't do heredity. On top of that, thermo was terrible. The test was super short and easy. Like, two history questions, and then 15 multiple choice. 5 short answer questions that were super easy and there's the test. The device part was even worse. They distributed water at different temperatures. I not sure if they realized that that gave the teams with higher temperature water a 5 point advantage on the heat score, but it was stupid. Next, they couldn't count a data series. They said 10 data points were five. It was jut terrible. But not as bad as some of the stories I've read on this discussion.

Honestly that sounds about normal for thermo, tbt MO states 2018

[TheCrazyChemist]

Ok, this won't sound bad, but Thermodynamics was terrible at our states. For one, the test and the device part was split into two periods, so I couldn't do heredity. On top of that, thermo was terrible. The test was super short and easy. Like, two history questions, and then 15 multiple choice. 5 short answer questions that were super easy and there's the test. The device part was even worse. They distributed water at different temperatures. I not sure if they realized that that gave the teams with higher temperature water a 5 point advantage on the heat score, but it was stupid. Next, they couldn't count a data series. They said 10 data points were five. It was jut terrible. But not as bad as some of the stories I've read on this discussion.

Honestly that sounds about normal for thermo, tbt MO states 2018

I guess I'm spoiled by premium invitationals like Rustin. Cornell was a bit strange with them using syringes, but it happened to everyone.

[jaspattack]

Honestly that sounds about normal for thermo, tbt MO states 2018

We don't talk about that. I still haven't heard the end of that from my teammates that did thermo last year (and probably never will)

[jzlau2]

My team's assigned regional is somewhat weak (Parkland Regional in Downstate Illinois) and many events are poorly written. This year, the Herpetology C test was nearly identical to the one from the previous year. I remembered at least 10 questions and accompanying images (out of 16 total) that got recycled, including the tiebreaker. In addition, 13/16 questions covered material on the second page of the official list, while there were only 3 questions that covered material from the first page. It was quite obvious that the test was scraped together with too little time to put any effort into the questions, and the writers assumed nobody would notice. Unfortunately for them, they were wrong.

[builderguy135]

My team's assigned regional is somewhat weak (Parkland Regional in Downstate Illinois) and many events are poorly written. This year, the Herpetology C test was nearly identical to the one from the previous year. I remembered at least 10 questions and accompanying images (out of 16 total) that got recycled, including the tiebreaker. In addition, 13/16 questions covered material on the second page of the official list, while there were only 3 questions that covered material from the first page. It was quite obvious that the test was scraped together with too little time to put any effort into the questions, and the writers assumed nobody would notice. Unfortunately for them, they were wrong.

We had a road test that was the same for the past (at least) 3 years.

It's also 13 questions long. Questions weren't even hard smh

[dxu46]

My team's assigned regional is somewhat weak (Parkland Regional in Downstate Illinois) and many events are poorly written. This year, the Herpetology C test was nearly identical to the one from the previous year. I remembered at least 10 questions and accompanying images (out of 16 total) that got recycled, including the tiebreaker. In addition, 13/16 questions covered material on the second page of the official list, while there were only 3 questions that covered material from the first page. It was quite obvious that the test was scraped together with too little time to put any effort into the questions, and the writers assumed nobody would notice. Unfortunately for them, they were wrong.

We had a road test that was the same for the past (at least) 3 years.

It's also 13 questions long. Questions weren't even hard smh

Imagine this: A Rocks and Minerals test that didn't have timed stations, you could go back to any station at any time, there were rocks and minerals not on the list like Hornfels (which they spelled wrong) and Eclogite, and the test was the EXACT SAME for 2 years. Including the spelling mistake. Oh, and the top 5 teams who placed in 2017 were the (close to) exact same in 2018, including the exact order. Not only did the event supervisor not make a new test, but they were probably too lazy to grade as well.

Oh, and it was easily doable in 15 minutes. We only took 30 in 2017 because we were confused about the spelling mistake.

[lindsmaurer]

There was one invitational where Mystery was run very sketchily: it was a bridge, but they measured the bridge as length + height. And then tiebreakers were'nt any dimension, they were as follows: tape left, straws left, string left. And there were only some really weak paper straws, tape, and string.
We took 8th, my worst placing in Mystery this year

[space-egg]

At an Indiana regional earlier this year:

For Potions and Poisons, the idenification section was a slideshow. We got like 45 seconds for each slide. The proctors running the event left the slideshow up on a laptop, and told us we could individually look at it if we needed more time. Then they set the laptop up in a corner, and walked away. The laptop was fully connected to the internet and could be used to look up answers.

Also from that same test: A girl asked to listen to Shawn Mendez. The event proctors hooked up a computer to the speakers in the testing room and played Shawn Mendez radio. A few people were bothered by it, but the proctors saw nothing wrong with it.

I can't be too mad though, seeing as we ended up medaling

[TheCrazyChemist]

At an Indiana regional earlier this year:

For Potions and Poisons, the idenification section was a slideshow. We got like 45 seconds for each slide. The proctors running the event left the slideshow up on a laptop, and told us we could individually look at it if we needed more time. Then they set the laptop up in a corner, and walked away. The laptop was fully connected to the internet and could be used to look up answers.

Also from that same test: A girl asked to listen to Shawn Mendez. The event proctors hooked up a computer to the speakers in the testing room and played Shawn Mendez radio. A few people were bothered by it, but the proctors saw nothing wrong with it.

I can't be too mad though, seeing as we ended up medaling

Yeah, this seems sketchy. Very sketchy.

[linzhiyan]

Ok, so MO states was today and my first event was CodeBusters. We got to the room at like 8:50 (first event starts at 9), but THE ES DIDN'T COME UNTIL FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER. So it was around 9:15 when the test started. AND THEY ENDED THE TEST AT 10!!!!!! The test was sooo super easy, but we only got 45 minutes to do the test, but had we had the remaining 5 minutes, I could've finished that 700 point hill cipher that I was working on... And not only that, but because the ES came late, I was late to my next event (I had three events back to back) which was anatomy and our alternate's phone didn't have service, so she didn't know to fill in for me... And I got lost on campus (I went left instead of right) and ended up running around campus before I finally found my anatomy room. By the time I'd gotten there, my partner had already finished over half of the test... yeah... it was a great morning.