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The forensics test was badly written. Some of the questions were merely worded in a confusing manner, which would have been cleared up by a proctor if the test had been given in regular competition. Some questions were, however, impossibly mangled.

Case in point: the DNA fingerprinting portion of the test was centered around an image (taken from Google images) of a gel with several samples on it. Two of the "samples," including the one labeled as the DNA evidence found at the scene, were actually the ladders run in the gel for comparison purposes, to indicate the lengths of all of the DNA fragments present. It was therefore impossible to match any of the other labeled samples, the suspects, to the DNA found at the scene, and that part of the "collected evidence" could not be used in the analysis.

That being said, all of the other tests I took as part of this invitational were challenging and well written. I am very glad that my team was able to take part in it! This test, however, doesn't seem to have been proofread at all. Even a cursory second glance would have fixed some of the errors.

Wait... was this a virtual invitational? Or on that note, are there any virtual invitationals?

It was an invitational run by the Iolani School in Hawaii and each school participating made a test.

So how is it virtual?? Don't all teams write tests anyway? Why is theis invite special?

Each team was sent the documents of all of the tests and the coaches distributed and proctored the tests whenever we wanted during a given week. We had to write all our answers out in word documents and email them back, then each coach got the answer sheets for the test they wrote, graded them and then they were posted online. No one had to travel anywhere and all the tests were taken without a set schedule so there were no conflicts. Pretty awesome idea from a school (host school is from hawaii) that can't really participate in competitive invitationals without traveling absurd distances.

The big problem with it is that lab events are difficult to do and buildits cant be done...

Anyone else think dynamic was impossible?

PacificGoldenPlover wrote:Anyone else think dynamic was impossible?

Also, apparently Iolani did not get permission from NSO to host this invitational.

I thought it was a little specific... Also, my partner and I were too lazy to do the math so we just skipped it!

Well, copnsidering the top score was a 43.5%...

Hey guys, if any of you took the Remote Sensing test, how was it? My friend and I actually wrote the test and any feedback would be nice!