Science Olympiad at Penn State Div C Invitational (SOAPS)

[Giantpants]

Hi friends,

I had the incredible honor of serving as the Event Supervisor and one of the co-writers for Sounds of Music at SOAPS, along with the great Aaron Su (Cumberland Valley '20, Texas A&M '24).

This was the first Sounds of Music test I wrote after doing the event for 2 years in high school, and personally, I found it to be quite a challenge compared to the Geologic Mapping tests I wrote earlier in the season. So, I'm very thankful to have had Aaron to help me out when I definitely needed assistance.

Next, as always, congratulations again to everyone who competed! I feel like I say this every time, but the resilience of the Science Olympiad community is honestly impressive beyond measure. Seeing so many new invitationals pop up this year has been a definite plus in what otherwise has been a relatively bleak and kind of unfortunate season, so I'm so glad something as awesome as SOAPS was able to rise up from all this.

Since I was new to writing Sounds of Music tests, I based the formatting off of other tests I wrote and made a few multiple choice but put the real emphasis and challenge in short answer questions where I asked for explanations and descriptions. I've always felt that this is the best way to truly differentiate teams, and based on the high scoring teams and their impressive results, it appears to have done a good job! Congratulations to our Sounds of Music winners, West Windsor Plainsboro High School North (that builderguy135 guy is just too good) and additional congratulations to them for such an impressive and resounding win overall at the tournament!!

Onto the test! Some quick stats:
Maximum: 66.79%
Average: 37.09% (50.99)
Median: 36% (49.5)
Standard Deviation: 17.83

Teams generally performed as I expected they would, with few teams getting the harder concept/explanation based questions I placed at the end of the test. However, I was definitely impressed by the teams that were able to get it, as these were concepts that I didn't really think were on many Sounds of Music tests I had seen.

Teams performed pretty well on the multiple choice, which in retrospect definitely had its easy parts. However, this is obviously the point, since, it's no fun if a team is unable to get any questions! In contrast, some friends of mine told me they thought the test was extremely difficult, something I honestly was not expecting, as I actually feared it might be too easy. This was excellent to hear, since personally in large tournaments with so many teams of such varying skill levels, having a test that effectively asks questions ranging from easy to hard is definitely the best way to differentiate teams, so I'm very glad that was achieved. (I'm definitely relieved too!)

I also received feedback from one team that there wasn't enough music theory on the test, stating that there was too much "physics of sound." While I understand this argument, I think it ultimately doesn't hold up because if you look at the Sounds of Music rules, four out of five of the points listed as topics for tests (by my judgement) fall under the "physics of sound" category. Now this of course doesn't mean a test should be strictly 80% physics and 20% music theory, but I think the emphasis of the event should definitely be placed on the physics aspect, which I think our test did. That being said, going forward I'll do my best to include adequate music theory sections so that people who are on the event for that express purpose have more to work with/do.

Lastly, for the sheet music analysis section, I included an excerpt of a favorite song of mine from a video game, and challenged competitors to guess what song it was (for no points of course). The measures were an excerpt from the Sky Station Galaxy theme from Super Mario Galaxy 2. I honestly expected no one to even come close, but to my extreme surprise, 4 teams correctly pinpointed it was from Super Mario Galaxy (they didn't say Galaxy 2 but still incredible) with one team even pinpointing the song perfectly as the Sky Station Galaxy theme from Galaxy 2. For anyone curious, I'll link the point in the song that was on the test. It's a distinct section, so you should be able to tell when it ends haha. To the teams that said Super Mario Galaxy, and especially to the team who perfectly identified it, you have my absolute and undying respect! (Of course all the competitors do, but you get what I mean).

Final Thoughts

If you are interested in leaving feedback for my test (which I would appreciate a great deal!) feel free to at this link, and give as much or as little as you want! It's always helpful to hear what competitors thought of the exam, for next time of course! This is particularly important as I move forward to writing the regional and state exams for Pennsylvania, so for any teams in PA, I am especially interested to hear your input!! And of course, as always, my contact info is on the sheet, so you are always free to contact me with any questions!!

As always, I truly appreciate funny answers on our test, and SOAPS was no exception. They make grading a lot more fun and less monotonous, so I'm thankful to everyone who gave it a shot when all else failed!

So I wasn't really as on top of grading as I normally am, and due to the multi-parted nature of many of our questions, grading took a while (when Arman said people were up past 5 am grading, he was talking about me oops lmao). That being said, I really couldn't have asked for a better group of people to spend time with grading. All the fellow event supervisors made grading so fun!!

Special thanks to Zoe (zgs11) and Arman (lavarball) for being both awesome tournament directors and good friends, I'm so thankful to have become your good friend last year and I'm so happy that it led to this opportunity! You guys are the greatest, and we are all so thankful for your hardwork. Thanks also to Ben and Alexis! Though I didn't get the chance to communicate with you two that much, you were an integral part of running this competition, and so I am incredibly thankful for your hard work. And of course, thanks to RobertYL, Lumosityfan, sophisSyo, and all the other pog people I spent time with while grading. You all are the best, as always, and every tournament I get to spend with you all is another blessing for which I am incredibly thankful.

I'm attaching distributions here, as well as a link to a folder with the exams modified into a Google Doc. I hope they are helpful for studying, and please remember to contact Aaron or I with any questions!

Thanks to everyone who helped run SOAPS and all the competitors for such a clean invitational! I was honored to help out, and definitely hope to be able to do more in the future!!

(and yes that was me at the start of the ceremony in the why scioly video yes i was wearing a fall out boy shirt. face reveal vibes )

SoundsofMusic-SOAPS2021-Histogram.PNG (16.72 KiB) Viewed 4201 times

[americanwoodglock]

Hey Guys!

I was the co-ES of DP for this invitational. Big thanks to Zoe & the rest of the Board for running this invitational. Some stats if you care:

Max: 59%
Mean: 24.6%

Distribution

How we wrote the test(In order of writing):

Section 2(Predator): We compiled a list of topics that we thought test writers(and us) didn't really write about and wrote questions on that list. On top of that, we tried to build questions that tested your brain a little. Ex. Instead of asking What is Ekman Net Transport(90 degrees), In Q36(Problem 1 in the Section), we gave you a little info. Using that little info + 90 degrees, you could come up with an answer.

Did we succeed? Idk, you tell us!

Section 1(Prey): This is where we filled in the blanks. Whatever topic we didn't write about in Section 2, we wrote about here. We made the questions a little bit easier, but there were some gems, some questions we really liked. Unsurprisingly, competitors did better on this section.

Section 3(Don't take kindly to feedback): This was originally supposed to be an in-depth look at El Nino and fisheries. Surprisingly, there is a lot less low-level information about this topic than you would think. We converted this section to be about El Nino's feedback cycles. The first question described the positive feedback cycle that fuels El Nino. The next 4 questions described 4 different theories about the negative feedback cycles that push El Niño into La Nina. This section was difficult to understand, but teams that answered the questions did better than expected.

Section 4(O'Neer Story Problem): We hope you liked this style of questions, and we're super excited about where we can take this!

Overall, the test was difficult and long. There were some questions that we could have made multiple choice, but we hope you liked it and learn something from it. We definitely had a lot of fun writing it(if you ignore the constant complaining). Oh yeah, if you want the test, I guess you can PM me.

[axolotl]

Hi everyone! I co-wrote Ornithology (with Bea <33) and Fossils (with Claire!!!) for SOAPS 2021. First of all, a huge thank you to Zoe, Arman, Alexis, and Ben for running such a smooth invitational for competitors, event supervisors, and test graders!!! In a time conducive to isolation, thank you for giving all of us the opportunity to experience the Science Olympiad community.

Ornithology
Maximum: 165.3 (68%)
Mean: 72.71 (30%)
Median: 64.7 (27%)
Standard Deviation: 35.7

Thank you to everyone who took Ornithology and/or left feedback! This test was 243.5 points and 174 questions long; congratulations to Stephen F Austin for 1st place! Additionally, one of the biggest victories for me was inserting audio/video clips without anybody being unable to open them (to my knowledge) so I have finally figured out the magical code which scilympiad doesn't get mad at I'll leave the rest of it to Bea because the orni goddess says it best: Hi everyone! I am one of the co-writers/main writer of the Ornithology exam you took this past weekend! I also was a co-writer for Yosemite (if some of my test-writing style sounds familiar). While writing this test, I really wanted to extend beyond just looking at a binder for information to actually knowing the subject of Ornithology holistically. Being able to infer different things from your background knowledge of other species is an extremely important skill and shows that you really are a star Looking through the exam, a lot of teams managed to do exactly that and answer even the toughest of questions! I was overall very impressed with everyone's performance (and especially loved the meme answers, they made grading so much more fun). Also, one thing -- so many people left feedback about the length of the test. We definitely did not expect you guys to finish, AT ALL! Not even close. Even if I knew the answers beforehand I doubt I would have finished the exam myself in an hour. It was simply a test of your guys' skill, time-management skills, and how well you knew your bird stuff. Then again, I understand that having an extremely long test can be very stressful and frustrating as a competitor. I will keep this in mind when I write future Orni tests (keep a look out at BIRDSO ). Thank you all for taking our test, and do not hesitate to contact either one of us with feedback and/or questions!

Fossils
Maximum: 146.72 (52%)
Mean: 64.89 (23%)
Median: 63.6 (23%)
Standard Deviation: 34.3

Thank you to everyone who took Fossils and/or left feedback! This test was 281.5 points and 233 questions long; congratulations to WWPN and Mason for 1st and 2nd!!! Being only 2 points apart, the tests were close enough to warrant multiple regrades. In writing this test with Claire, we really wanted to cover a wide range of topics which stretched the bounds of the rules so we included Bone Wars History, characteristics of each time period, identifying teeth, evolutionary transitions, the infamously hated radiometric dating, etc. We had a lot of fun reading research papers on different specimens and learning new things while writing! While grading, we were extremely impressed at the skill of teams in time management, using context clues, and taking their best shot at answers. Even with a different format of identifying from description (something I will definitely continue using), numerous teams got the rock identification correct, as well as the tooth identification (which I couldn't have gotten all correct).
The test was not intended to be finished by any means (as we can see by the maximum lol) but we hope you'll go back through and research topics farther upon receiving them back. Apologies for the strange grading on Station 7 (trace fossils), I went through the questions without realizing that answers aside from those in the fill in the blank could be accepted. I'm very sad this event is leaving next year, but looking forward to writing for the Mason Invite and other state competitions, so I'll have the pleasure of writing again for those who are going!!! May the mammoth cube be with you in your studying.

[zsg11]

Hi everyone!

I am probably super late with this message, but I wanted to (finally) post a SOAPS Wrap-Up message.

I want to start off by (again) thanking everyone who worked so hard to make SOAPS a reality. A lot of this is copied from my awards speech, but that is because there are limited ways in which you can thank all of these people who mean the world to you without becoming unoriginal. In absolutely no order, thank you to:
~Dave Moyer, the PA state director, for believing in us from the very start.
~All of my amazing event supervisors and test writers. SOAPS would not have happened without your help and I’m so grateful for all of you. I am super impressed with the overall quality of our tests this year. You guys are seriously the best.
~All of my volunteer graders. grading over 1800 tests in 1 weekend is no easy feat, and we certainly could not have done it without your help. (UPDATE: we managed to accomplish it in under 24 hours. You guys are insane in the best way possible.) Side note: It was absolutely wonderful getting to meet all of these new people (ESs and Graders, alike) and become closer with those I was already lucky enough to know. You all mean the world to me.
~All of the coaches who believed in us enough to sign up—I am still in awe that we got 81 teams at a first-year invitational!
~Peter Hung for answering my approximately 10 million questions and to Thuan for developing such an effective test-taking platform.
~SOAPS’ competitors. I really hope that SOAPS was as much fun for you as it was for us, and we really hope to see you back next year (in person, if it all goes right) either as a competitor (or if you’re a senior and thinking about coming to Penn State, as a member of our club!)
~The rest of the SOAPS executive board: Ben, my Treasurer, for your million trips to the business office and experience in like half of the events we ran; and Alexis, my Secretary for your unlimited knowledge of how Penn State works which is vital for an executive board full of freshmen.
~Last but certainly not least, my Co-Tournament Director and vice-president, Arman thank you for always being awake to answer my 3am texts about SOAPS, because when else would invitational inspiration strike? Without your marketing genius and relentless effort to get teams to sign up, SOAPS never would have had this many schools register, and it is because of you we were able to make this such an impressive tournament. I wouldn't want to start an invitational with anybody else, and I'm so glad we decided to start something historical together.

Thank you all so much for making Arman's and my dream of hosting our own invitational come true. SOAPS has been in conversation since Arman and I were juniors in high school (about 2 years now!) and after the remainder of our senior season was canceled, we both felt pretty lost without Science Olympiad. This seemed to be a fairly universal theme, as a majority of our test writers were also a part of the infamous Class of 2020. We sincerely hope that writing for SOAPS was a positive outlet for you all, just as it was for us. We received so much support from everyone, impressed that 2 freshmen could create a club and an entire invitational within a few weeks of arriving at school (and one of us wasn't even on campus LOL). However, if I am being entirely honest, it felt like the logical next step in Arman and I's journey, and the sheer volume of what we managed to pull off didn't even hit me until Sunday night after awards.

I could actually go on about this forever (the original version of my awards intro speech was nearly 6 minutes long ) but now I have a much-awaited announcement: I have posted the entire SOAPS 2021 test set in the Test Set Exchange on the wiki! This is filled with histograms and the final scores. We really hope that people who didn't get to compete at SOAPS are still able to learn from our test set, as our wonderful Event Supervisors worked incredibly hard on them.

If you made it this long, I congratulate you! I really appreciate that you took the time to read what I've written. It's an absolute mEss, but I can live with that:)

I wish everyone the absolute best of luck with the rest of their seasons and I sincerely hope that SOAPS helped you in your preparations.

All the best,

Zoe