Scioly.org

05/13/2011 - 21:53 Usually, the observation sheet will be prenumbered. At nationals, will we have to number ourselves or will it be similar to other competitions and be prenumbered?
No, the national sheet will not be pre-numbered.

(section: 5 / paragraph: a / line: 1)

05/14/2011 - 12:31 I understand each question needs to be supported by observations that have been previously numbered. Will each question be limited to one supporting observation, or can it be supported by multiple observations.
Yes, one complete observation. Complete is the active word here. What does the powder look like? All observations based on this on this question, should be numbered as one observation. My instructions tell the students that they should number each observation and indent if their observation runs longer than that line. They will ONLY be able to make ONE observation to answer a question.

05/15/2011 - 17:17 Since we have to write the appearance of the powder on one line, if they ask for an individual characteristic of the powder (ex. luster) would we be penalized for having excess (the rest of the physical characteristics) on the same line?
Yes, if lumps was an observation and it may be written on the same line with other observations.

Please please please check for superficial things too. Don't be caught offguard like my partner and I at regs.

Here's a tip from me. I do this event, and i got 17th at my state competition...needless to say I was kinda sad because we usually win the whole shabang. Anyways, we were caught off guard by the one pen thing because me and my partner always did it with 2 pens. Make sure you read the rule clarifications because for the rule clarifications for nationals, they said we were only going to be given one pen. Also, try and make a list of observations to make, and just memorize it. At big competitions such as state and nationals, they will 99.99% of the time give you ANOTHER reagent, or even 2, adding on to the water, HCl, and NaOH that they WILL give you. Make a list of the important observations about a powder if they give you a certain reagent (i.e., if they give you Silver Nitrate-AgNO3-then check for precipitates). Also, the woman who runs it and writes the rules, Gretchen Wolf, has patterns on which observations she will ask throughout the years since 2003. For example, she ALWAYS asks about your favorite observation and the labels on the containers. Also, for your favorite observation, since at Nationals she says she uses it as a tie breaker, make it a numerical observation like, "0.1 g of the substance in 10 mL of H2O had a pH of 5, so therefore it was a weak acid." Take it from me, this will help. My source? I'm a national medalist-1st place in Can't Judge a Powder.

You'd think they would give you two pens so you can't change answers. And nice job pwning at Nats! I still find you annoying for going 2 nats instead of kennedy.

That test was quite surprising. We got 4th and we thought we failed since we ultimately missed what the non-polar solvent (we think) was.

My partner: you don't have to outrun the bear; just the other people.

nice job! ahhhh my team got 1st at natioanls
I was one of the jv kids they mentored so imma very proud of them yay!

how did they practice?

My school has some weird things in CJP . . .
I was on the "B" Team at Regionals and got 1st in CJP with my partner.
Then at states, the state team (which I was not on) got 1st in CJP also (our only medal at states).

Our way of practicing was just running the tests and questions over and over and we kept correcting the ones we got wrong. I think it was pretty good since we got 1st in states and regionals. One time the CJP teams stayed until 8:00 PM at school to practice (and I was one of them).

I wonder if the CJP event graders even check the observation sheet when they see the part that says, "Which observation numbers support this question?" I accidentally wrote exothermic on the observation sheet instead of endothermic, and then on the question sheet I wrote endothermic and wrote the # for the observation which said exothermic. Strange.

We did some practice testing. We had hcl naoh and iodine. Plus some more.