BirdSO Invitational 2021

[Banana2020]

Meteo(1st)- Best test I've literally ever taken, partner put a Shakespeare quote and we somehow still got 1st. Also Umaroth and Gwennie wrote the test so... Wildfire section was interesting and put some critical thinking in the test instead of brainless multiple choice questions where you just copy stuff from your cheat sheet. Overall 20/10

Dynamic Planet(6th)- Interesting test, definitely the hardest DP test I've ever taken, plus the raw scores show it , man 56.5/280 gets 6th, but probably should've expected it given that it was written by 3/4 of the 2019 IESO team lol., Overall:9/10

Game On(DQ)- thank you for letting use know about the sound issue before states, overall our score was 89/100 so yash, kinda salty, but i really should read the rules more carefully. Overall 11/10

Codebusters(7th)- Salty about getting 7th but life is life, pretty good test, decent amount of patristocrats and aristocrates. Overall:8/10

Mousetrap(8th)- was rushed the whole time, why was the test 12 minutes long, ridiculous. Overall:5/10

[Longivitis]

Hi all! The scoreboards have been finalized:
Division B: https://scilympiad.com/birdso/Info/Resu ... c9301579cd
Division C: https://scilympiad.com/birdso/Info/Resu ... bd7e76456b

Next, tests have been released here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing

This is a strong reminder that tests should not be reused or repurposed in any shape or form for other competitions.

Thanks for attending!
Jason

[YeagerTheCat]

Can only speak to Mousetrap and I will be happy to defend the way it was run. The distance was of course released ahead of time, the 12 minutes made it a fair fight between teams. 9/10.

[azboy1910]

Event Reviews!
Hi, I didn't do as well at this tournament as I had hoped , but I believe I did well in some of my events. Anyways, here are my event reviews below!

Circuit Lab (6th): I thought this test was good and there were lots of hard and unique questions. The instructions were quite confusing, so we were worried that we didn't format the answers correctly. I didn't like however that some questions were worth so many points while others were like 2 or 3 and felt personally that they shouldn't have been given that many points. The bonus question at the end was very hard to figure out, and we ended up receiving 0 points as a result of that. I do believe that it did help me understand quite a bit of different concepts, and I'm thankful for that, so thank you to the exam writers! Rating: 8/10

Codebusters (18th): There's not much to say about this honestly. It was quite a lengthy test and was like most other codebusters tests I had seen in the past. I thought it had a good amount of each cipher though. We didn't work well as a team at all, missed the time bonus, and only solved 6 ciphers as a team....... Rating: 8/10

Crime Busters (2nd): This test was very, very long. In fact, this was the longest test in Crime Busters I have ever taken at an invitational before. It's length and difficulty of questions made the test quite a challenge. I sort of liked the idea of how some data for ID was missing, giving teams a challenge. The general questions were also very good, being difficult, but also unique. I enjoyed this test a lot, and it helped me learn a bit about the things that I had done wrong. I do feel that there were some flaws, but overall a very good test. Rating: 9/10

Density Lab (7th): I didn't like this test personally. I don't mean this in a bad way, but I didn't like some of the obscure information you had to know for this test and the external submission was creative, but at the same time an annoyance. Then again, maybe it's not obscure, and I'm forgetting I don't know this kind of stuff......... I don't know to be honest, don't judge me. I did like that some questions were a reasonable difficulty and were unique, however. Overall pretty good test, but could be improved in my opinion. Rating: 6/10

I'd like to thank everyone that helped organize and make this tournament possible. I appreciate you all

[jimmy-bond]

Chem Lab (33): I'm not exactly qualified to give an opinion for this event. But, from the limited knowledge I have of this event, the test covered a good variety of chemistry principles and didn't base too much on procedures or specific examples (ex if I mix X and Y, why does it do Z, when it should theoretically do W?). I'll definitely look at some of the questions when I review for my AP Chem exam, so 10/10.

Codebusters (28): Wow, everyone's cracked at code, huh. Aristocrats were amazing, and my personal feedback for that part is to give more, but obviously you don't want too many aristocrats in one test. There was more encoding than I'd like to see, but other than that, I thought it was stellar. Only including one Morbit and one Pollux was a fantastic move since those are straight-up painful for many in the online environment. 9/10.

Disease Detectives (18): The scenario was great, the general epidemiology questions were great. I'm not sure how one can obtain an r-value of 10, like one question touched upon. 9/10.

Dynamic Planet (26): I thought my brain was melted when I finished taking the test. Lots of math-based questions and that segment about plovers seemed like they only loosely tied into the rules, but then again, that's the beauty of SciOly. It was clear that the writers not only wanted you to know your stuff, but also to know why your stuff is that way, but I'd imagine it was a nightmare for many teams from a competitive standpoint. 7.5/10.

ExpDA (23): As the statistics guy of the trio, I was ecstatic that there were more than 10 questions on statistics. Also as the statistics guy, I now realize how much of the rules I neglected to prepare for. We had partial points on quite a few parts of the experiment, so I'm guessing the writers were generous, which was well-appreciated. 10/10.

Forensics (3): Long. I didn't get to see half of the test, but it definitely meant both partners had to be able to hold their own. Perhaps too long. However, it had a great amount of trivia, which is my favorite part. 9.5/10.

Science Quiz Bowl (15): I mean, it had a bit of everything. What more could you ask for? As you'd expect, the difficulty range was pretty wide (I was expecting graduate-level topics going in). I felt it was a tad bit short, though. 9/10.

Water Quality (10): While the even split between emphasis on coral and the other marine species was bad for me, I enjoyed that aspect since it provided a dabble in some areas that I haven't encountered before (coral diseases was definitely my favorite). As I mentioned earlier, DyPlan and WQ were the two most difficult tests in my opinion, but I appreciated the breadth of topics in WQ and the fact that it didn't bleed too much into DyPlan's curriculum. I enjoyed the fish questions and having more would be a personal preference. 10/10.

Overall (25): My head hurt. 10/10.

[vye904]

(Div B) Event Review!

Code (8th): First time doing the event so I don’t have much to say. Nice variation of ciphers throughout the test, it was fun to take. I personally don't like the event in general but the test was still a (10/10)

Disease (7th): The sections based on separate cases were well written and easy to follow. The application short answer and calculations were fun and interesting. I liked how the multiple choice questions were spread out throughout the test instead of being confined to 1 section. (8/10)

Exp & Data (4th): Overall I liked how the test was formatted. The questions were well written and tested a large variety of topics. The experiment portion was fun and I liked the materials. My team's math carry liked sections 2 and 3. The grading was also very well done and thorough. (9/10)

Heredity (3rd): Really well written test that still abided by the rules. It covered a good amount of topics and overall had a nice distribution of harder and easier questions. The test was a little probability heavy, but I get that it was written like that on purpose. (9/10)

Road (3rd): Generic road test (maybe I've been spoiled with good quality tests this season). Then again, there's not much you can do to make a road test unique. The student drawing was fun, the length was nice and the maps were high quality. Great test overall! (8/10)

WICI (5th): First time doing WICI, and it was honestly really fun. I wish I had more opportunities to do it. The pieces were really well made, and the small differences between pieces made it a really great test. I didn’t get to finish since I went relatively slow (and lost a piece too many times), but it was still a great learning experience. (9/10)

[axolotl]

Crime Busters - Supervisor Review

Salutations! I'm jaspattack, and I'm incredibly grateful to have supervised for BirdSO! I had the pleasure of working on the Crime Busters test along with my co-ES, Claire. If you're reading this, you likely survived the exam period and I'd like to congratulate you on making it that far. This was a tough test (like many others at this invitational) and you did it! Pat yourself on the back.

Running Crime Busters in a virtual setting is difficult. Every team has their own approaches to ID, and ways they like to split up exams. Tests in normal seasons tend to err on the shorter side, allowing ample time for teams to perform tests and clean up their stations while still being able to complete a majority of the test. However, in a virtual season where information is available without having to perform tests, teams experienced at identifying unknowns can move through the test at a much faster pace than they would be able to in a normal season. As a result, this test is really, really long. Very few teams made it through the test, and those that did likely left large sections blank. Only two teams had answers for all 114* questions, and only 5 teams answered more than 100 questions.

*There were 115 questions on the Scilympiad version of the test, which included our "honor code" question at the beginning. However, the test itself only has 114 questions, which is reflected on the release document.

Stats



Points Possible: 346, with 100 possible on the analysis portion
Mean: 93 (26.8%)
Median: 88 (25.3%)
Standard Deviation: 46

The scores for this test were pretty low! The top score was a 57%, and most teams scored much lower than that. The first three sections (powders, liquids, and metals) as well as the analysis were not graded by me so I can't speak as much on them, but I do know that the hair, soil and DNA sections were tough on teams. Plastics were also difficult, with the highest score on the plastic subsection being a 56%. Teams did well on the fingerprints section, with a lot of teams getting at least half the points possible.

My goal with the second half of the test was to write more conceptual questions to check that teams not only understand the purpose behind the use of each subject in an investigation, but also the concepts and principles that drive them. It's not enough to know how to match one DNA fingerprint to another -- you should understand why you are able to do that in the first place. A full, conceptual understanding of topics in the rules separates the top teams from the rest.

As a result, the distribution for this exam was very linear. I'm impressed with how well it separated teams; we had very few (if any, I don't quite remember) ties to break. I wish I had more to say about the powders, liquids and metals, but those sections were largely out of my control and were handled entirely by Claire. I'd like to thank her for being a wonderful co-event supervisor, since this test wouldn't exist without her.

Conclusion
Thank you to everyone who took this test, and to all of the event supervisors and tournament directors that volunteered for this invitational! This was an incredibly well-run tournament, and I don't know how I'm going to be able to supervise for any other in the future without wishing it was BirdSO. The team pulling the strings was working around the clock some days, and I know for a fact that they're an incredibly talented group that will do some fantastic things in the future. I just hope that I'll be there to see it when they do!

As always, the test and the score distribution are available in the release folder posted earlier in the thread (and in the pinned messages of the #birdso channel in the Discord server). If you take it, feel free to shoot me a message and let me know! I hope you enjoy taking it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Until next time,
jaspattack

[stenopushispidus]

div b event reviews

disclaimer: i am not good at scioly or any of my events and all of these reviews should be taken with a grain of salt

Circuit Lab: I really enjoyed the way that the schematics were formatted and the real life applications and scenarios in the questions. Significantly better than other circuit lab tests I’ve taken this year (Dodgen, Sierra Vista, UT, BEARSO) in my opinion. Really enjoyed how the last questions used a real life schematic. 11/10.

Crime Busters: (jasp i’m sorry for failing you) Crime busters was incredibly well written and I loved how the “random questions” on this test asked about a range of subjects and didn’t show “favoritism” towards one facet of science touched by crime busters. 11/10.

Water Quality: This test was...a level up from many other tests I’ve taken this season. It was written so well and in a special format that just made it very difficult to compare with other tests. Honestly, on par with the other test I consider the best water quality test I’ve ever taken (Sierra Vista 2021 by SilverBreeze). It was just so comprehensive and amazing, don’t know how to describe it without just telling someone to take the test. 12/10.

Dynamic Planet: Very well written and had questions from many different areas of dynamic. I would say that it was an exceptionally well written test, but not the best test I’ve ever taken. I honestly don’t know what I would change because it was a great test, I just will say that I was exceptionally good but not the best. It is up there though. 10/10.

Science Bowl: I failed science bowl (the buzzer round) so horribly (worse than my usual horrible, I don’t do well in general but this was worse than I usually do) I don’t think I am qualified to give a review (also because I’ve never taken any other science bowl test). It was very good though. And yes, while I did medal, that was because of the test part whereas when I got to the buzzer round...things got dicey for me. ???/10

again, i am very bad at science olympiad, especially my events, so please please please take my reviews with a grain of salt because i am completely not qualified for being a “test reviewer”

[Mr.Epithelium]

The final coaches update has been sent out - awards have been shipped! https://docs.google.com/document/u/8/d/ ... hQF_k/edit#

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