Scioly.org

All I'm doing is listening hard in my chemistry class. Right before the competition I might skim through last year's bio notes.

Did anyone else notice that the test for 2004 nationals and 2009 nationals were EXACTLY the same? It was called practical data gathering back then, but all of the labs are identical. Does anyone have a copy of the 2003 and earlier tests, to see if those are the same too?

walkingstyx wrote:Did anyone else notice that the test for 2004 nationals and 2009 nationals were EXACTLY the same? It was called practical data gathering back then, but all of the labs are identical. Does anyone have a copy of the 2003 and earlier tests, to see if those are the same too?

Yes the Nationals proctor said that's where he got most of his information for the 2009 test from.

So can we expect the exact same test this year too? That seems kind of ridiculously biased to those who purchased tests from previous years or schools that have gone to nationals for a long time, not to mention that it is just bad test writing. I know there has been a general trend towards easier events in Scio, but testing an event that is supposed to rely on ingenuity with a test that some of the contestants are already aware of and can in fact find detailed descriptions of how to solve online easily? That really makes no sense.

Do I need to learn how to use all the different cbls and computer interfaces? Our school uses PASCO interfaces to computers with datastudio. Do I need to learn others or are there instructions?

There will be instructions, but it couldn't hurt to be familiar with them.

Considering that Science Olympiad has a partnership with Texas Instruments, you probably want to be familiar with TI calculators and Vernier Labpro Probes.

One of the standard questions for Tech Problem Solving for us has been find the number of atoms from in a plate made of some element. How exactly do you find that? Assuming you know the volume of plate, atomic radius of the plate, atomic mass of the element, weight of the plate, weight of 1 mol of the element? I thought I could just divide the weight of the plate by the atomic weight, but I guess not.

andrewbji wrote:One of the standard questions for Tech Problem Solving for us has been find the number of atoms from in a plate made of some element. How exactly do you find that? Assuming you know the volume of plate, atomic radius of the plate, atomic mass of the element, weight of the plate, weight of 1 mol of the element? I thought I could just divide the weight of the plate by the atomic weight, but I guess not.

If it's elemental, it should be Mass of plate (g)/mass of element (amu)= # of moles. Multiply that by Avogadro's number and that's your answer. If they are really giving you a weight rather than a mass you'll have to convert that first (F/g).

what do you do in this event?
-just curious