We do want to apologize for the error in pitch scoring that resulted in placings being changed after the tournament. While the error was present in SOINC's spreadsheet, it was also our responsibility to check the build scores more carefully before awards, and we apologize if your team was significantly affected by this. This was not the fault of MIT Science Olympiad (who did an amazing coordinating everything and ensuring everything was run smoothly), and we hope that this didn't negatively affect your overall enjoyment with the event or the tournament. Ultimately, we are glad that we caught it soon after the tournament rather than later.
A word of caution for all future tournaments: First of all, please make sure that you have re-downloaded the updated Sounds of Music scoresheet (v0.5) from soinc.org/sounds-music-c. Secondly, even though SOINC has updated the spreadsheet, it should NOT be imported into Google Sheets. Using Google Sheets instead of Microsoft Excel causes skipped and invalid pitches to earn full scores, so PLEASE use it in Microsoft Excel only.
That said, here is the exciting stuff: Exams and scores!
2020 MIT Sounds of Music Exams, Keys, and Score Distributions
The high score on each section was:
- Written Exam: 44/100
- Aural Exam: 19/30
- Pitch Test: 35.7/36
- Overall High Score: 98.89/105
- (36/44)(Written Score) + (9/19)(Aural Score) + (36/35.7)(Pitch Score) + Song Score + Log Score + Bonus, or
- (0.8182)(Written Score) + (0.4737)(Aural Score) + (1.0084)(Pitch Score) + Song Score + Log Score + Bonus.
Written Exam
Most Sounds of Music tests tend to consist of some combination of vocabulary definitions, basic formula usage, and randomly obscure instrument trivia. My objective was to create a test that primarily emphasized conceptual understanding and logical problem-solving, especially with a graphical focus. What the test did well was separate those who had misconceptions about the material from those who truly understood it (a prime example was Problem #1, part a). The downside was that there were many teams who made a lot of the same mistakes, resulting in lots of low scores with a handful of teams breaking away. Many teams scored 0/10 on Problem #1, although there were three teams with perfect scores on that page. There were some pages where many teams did well (Problems #4 and #8) and others where few teams made any headway (Problems #2 and #6). However, every subpart was answered correctly by at least one team, except for #7, part e.
Aside from the questions themselves, the main difficulty was the timing. As much as we would've liked to give more time, we needed to stay strictly on schedule. I tried my best to weight all questions fairly and provide a variety of problems so that teams could use their time to attempt the questions they were most comfortable with. One issue for many teams was spending too much time on problems that they didn't really understand (especially #1 and #2), thus wasting a lot of time for no points in return. Many questions went unattempted by most teams, so in the future, I'll try to be more cognizant about the time it takes for students to think through and answer problems like these.
Later, with MIT exam release, I'll also provide a document of worked solutions and explanations for every question, as well as a breakdown of how credit was awarded. (Note that the answers in the key are often more thorough than what was required to earn full credit.) I tried not to double-jeopardize teams and generally gave credit for later parts if an earlier part was incorrect. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions about grading.
Aural Exam
This was definitely what (as expected) caught most teams off-guard. I was a little surprised that no competition (to my knowledge) had done this before, probably for logistical reasons. The questions ranged from basic music terms (Passage #1) to somewhat more involved musical analysis (Passage #2), and finally to straight-up rhythm and pitch transcription à la AP Music Theory (Passage #3). I've provided the audio and the sources of the passages in the folder alongside the exam and key.
Even moreso than the written exam, all students reported that the main difficulty was the timing. Fitting three passages into 7 minutes meant that there were only 15 to 30 seconds between playings, which gave students little time to write down all their answers. Again, this was because we needed to stay strictly on time (aural still fell behind during the first half of the day), although it certainly wouldn't have hurt to cut down the number of questions or passages. Nonetheless, almost every question was answered correctly by at least one team. There were two things that nobody got: (1) the Greek mode of Passage #2 (I received each Greek mode at least three times except for the correct one... I also received answers of "pathos," "Achilles," and "Hercules"), and (2) the very last bass note in Passage #3. (And yes, one team did get the rhythm transcription correct.)
Admittedly, the way we scaled the written and aural exams separately was probably not within the rules, strictly speaking. Originally, I had planned to simply add the written and aural scores together and then scale it to 45 points, but I thought that would weight the aural exam too heavily, especially for teams who did well on it.
Build Testing (sort of)
I wasn't testing builds during the day, but I did witness some issues that were common across a lot of teams. A handful of teams made instruments that were far too quiet to be picked up, even when the microphone was as close as possible. Just because it works with your phone or with the microphone you own at home doesn't mean that every mic can pick it up if it's still faint as heck.
A surprising number of teams lost one or more points on their log—make sure that your log clearly and unambiguously meets ALL of the required criteria. The Sounds of Music Event Supervisor Guide on https://www.soinc.org/sounds-music-c might give you a better idea of what supervisors are looking for.
In addition, only a small handful of teams were able to land the bonus pitch. Getting within 3 cents in one try proved to be very hard.
If you have any further questions on build testing, you can reach out to my co-supervisor or our head volunteer (both of whom were testing builds) using the email addresses listed on the Event Guide.
Conclusion
That's all for now. We put a lot of time into planning this event and ensuring it would run smoothly, and we hope you all enjoyed it as much as we did! Supervising at MIT was a fantastic experience, and I would highly recommend that any Division C graduate consider applying in the future if you're interested. If you have questions or feedback, feel free to contact us via the email addresses on the Event Guide—we're always down to chat.
