SciolyDex - A Fresh, New, Professional Test Trading Firm

[hippo9]

We all know Random doesn't want anything to be widely available. He wants to hoard. If you wanted things to be widely available, you would release them either on the discord where there is no retaliation, or even better, on the test exchange. (We also want to "collect them all", hence SciolyDEX, a play off PokeDex )

Sorry, but why would Random want to hoard? He doesn't even compete anymore I thought.

[knottingpurple]

A majority of ESes when looking for inspiration for how to write tests will look at the most easily available ones (ergo Test Exchange, public things like PUSO, UT Austin, idr all of them). Doesn't that mean that the best practice tests to take are the most widely available ones, not the rarest ones?

But you get to a point where you know all the information in available tests, and you could learn some more obscure facts that could potentially make a difference. Additionally, practice tests (especially in certain events like Fermi) are the best ways to study, and the more the better

The best tests to take for easier, minor invites would of course be that. However, for more advanced competitions such as regionals or states, the ES'es know what their doing and make tests not according to widely available tests. Nationals is written by experts in those fields, and I'm certain (as I've attended nationals) that widely available tests do not help as much.

I can, however, say that tests are the best way to prepare and study for competitions. Having harder tests and rarer ones introduces you to new concepts that lets you dive into the more complicated topics.

I would like to argue that tests are not the best way to study - tests let you perfect synergy with your partners, so you know how to time yourselves on different length tests, how to find things on your note sheets quickly, who should answer which types of questions, and of course if you've never seen a test in a certain event before while competing you might not know where to start, but what you're talking about, extremely difficult tests preparing you for future tests... the probability that a test writer competent enough to find rare in depth information to ask about in a certain event is going to use exactly the same rare in depth information as another test writer is quite low. It's a more effective use of your time to do more research. You just need a couple of tough tests (say PUSO, which is public, and there's got to be some others) and if you take them spread out, you can check that your studying has well equipped you to answer questions of various types on all the topics in the event - even questions you have never seen before (because they have literally never been asked before in the history of scioly).

If you just take tests over and over, since most tests will repeat a good quantity of information you've already seen, you'll spend less time being exposed to new information than if you actually looked up new topics. Maybe for people with infinite time, having infinite tests is useful, but for the rest of us, it just isn't. There's a point after which you don't gain much more from having more tests: a few are useful when you're starting out in an event so you see what it is that you need to learn, a few are useful when you want to test your progress, but they are not the best way to prepare for competitions and they do not work on their own.

[Name]

I would like to argue that tests are not the best way to study - tests let you perfect synergy with your partners, so you know how to time yourselves on different length tests, how to find things on your note sheets quickly, who should answer which types of questions, and of course if you've never seen a test in a certain event before while competing you might not know where to start, but what you're talking about, extremely difficult tests preparing you for future tests... the probability that a test writer competent enough to find rare in depth information to ask about in a certain event is going to use exactly the same rare in depth information as another test writer is quite low. It's a more effective use of your time to do more research. You just need a couple of tough tests (say PUSO, which is public, and there's got to be some others) and if you take them spread out, you can check that your studying has well equipped you to answer questions of various types on all the topics in the event - even questions you have never seen before (because they have literally never been asked before in the history of scioly).

If you just take tests over and over, since most tests will repeat a good quantity of information you've already seen, you'll spend less time being exposed to new information than if you actually looked up new topics. Maybe for people with infinite time, having infinite tests is useful, but for the rest of us, it just isn't. There's a point after which you don't gain much more from having more tests: a few are useful when you're starting out in an event so you see what it is that you need to learn, a few are useful when you want to test your progress, but they are not the best way to prepare for competitions and they do not work on their own.

I definitely see your point, and in my opinion this definitely applies to the majority of the events. However there are the non cheat sheet events (is that inquiry only?) Where all the information is memorized and constantly practiced. Tests play a crucial role in constantly checking what you have memorized, while providing new information (in the case of Fermi/Fast facts) After a bit of studying, Fermi and fast facts are so broad that extra information can really only be obtained by tests. Or in the case of other inquiries, practice that only tests can provide.

Cheat sheet events, the focus should really be developing the ideas focused on the event into a cheat sheet/binder. Tests should be used to supplement any areas you haven't covered well/at all and definitely are useful but I doubt 50 tests would be as useful as using the time to improve the sheet.

[Random Human]

We all know Random doesn't want anything to be widely available. He wants to hoard. If you wanted things to be widely available, you would release them either on the discord where there is no retaliation, or even better, on the test exchange. (We also want to "collect them all", hence SciolyDEX, a play off PokeDex )

Sorry, but why would Random want to hoard? He doesn't even compete anymore I thought.

i dont, ws is just salty

[pb5754]

The best tests to take for easier, minor invites would of course be that. However, for more advanced competitions such as regionals or states, the ES'es know what their doing and make tests not according to widely available tests. Nationals is written by experts in those fields, and I'm certain (as I've attended nationals) that widely available tests do not help as much.

Regionals and states are not necessarily any harder than invites in all states, particularly in NJ. In terms of NJ, knottingpurple is definitely correct in saying that an ES is highly likely to base their test off of a publicly available invitationals test. Only in highly organized states/nationals would every single ES know what they are doing.

[Skink]

I strongly believe that the best preparation is actual studying as opposed to practice events (granting that you need both). There are some standardized tests wherein practice exams are predictive (and that's after much content review, including a possible review course), but SO events are not standardized tests. The events that benefit the most from having actual prepared tests currently in rotation are CB and 4N6, Disease Det, Experimental to a lesser extent, and WIDI. Most of the other ones won't get you far because it's not like most of the questions recur. For cheat sheet events, good events minimize their utility.

[Name]

The best tests to take for easier, minor invites would of course be that. However, for more advanced competitions such as regionals or states, the ES'es know what their doing and make tests not according to widely available tests. Nationals is written by experts in those fields, and I'm certain (as I've attended nationals) that widely available tests do not help as much.

Regionals and states are not necessarily any harder than invites in all states, particularly in NJ. In terms of NJ, knottingpurple is definitely correct in saying that an ES is highly likely to base their test off of a publicly available invitationals test. Only in highly organized states/nationals would every single ES know what they are doing.

Even in highly orginized states, events arnt necessary ran well. In NY for example, the helicopter room was the reason Ward Melville didn't advance to Nationals. Fermi had questions that could've been interpretted differently where we couldn't ask to clarify. Overall the event was ran relatively well, but certain events definitely had it's problems. I'd say high end invites and Nationals are the best ran events, but even in Cornell, they didn't run a lab for matsci

[pb5754]

The best tests to take for easier, minor invites would of course be that. However, for more advanced competitions such as regionals or states, the ES'es know what their doing and make tests not according to widely available tests. Nationals is written by experts in those fields, and I'm certain (as I've attended nationals) that widely available tests do not help as much.

Regionals and states are not necessarily any harder than invites in all states, particularly in NJ. In terms of NJ, knottingpurple is definitely correct in saying that an ES is highly likely to base their test off of a publicly available invitationals test. Only in highly organized states/nationals would every single ES know what they are doing.

Even in highly orginized states, events arnt necessary ran well. In NY for example, the helicopter room was the reason Ward Melville didn't advance to Nationals. Fermi had questions that could've been interpretted differently where we couldn't ask to clarify. Overall the event was ran relatively well, but certain events definitely had it's problems. I'd say high end invites and Nationals are the best ran events, but even in Cornell, they didn't run a lab for matsci

Yup. I second this.

[knottingpurple]

I strongly believe that the best preparation is actual studying as opposed to practice events (granting that you need both). There are some standardized tests wherein practice exams are predictive (and that's after much content review, including a possible review course), but SO events are not standardized tests. The events that benefit the most from having actual prepared tests currently in rotation are CB and 4N6, Disease Det, Experimental to a lesser extent, and WIDI. Most of the other ones won't get you far because it's not like most of the questions recur. For cheat sheet events, good events minimize their utility.

I don't know if we ever use WIDI tests from invites or something for practice (of course when we go to invites we do send our WIDI teams to compete), we've always just created builds on the spot out of water stuff happens to be in the room. (This sometimes leads to really weird squiggles on pieces of paper when we're in a sparse room, but yeah.) I always assumed experimental was the same, is it not?

Also, can confirm NJ regionals and states do not have hard tests, only teams which really want to improve and have the resources to throw at it seem to go to a lot of ivy league invites (this is the only type of invite we have in NJ lol, Rutgers wya) whereas every eligible team in the state goes there, so that's the competition about keeping the interest of a variety of experience levels, written by inexperienced test writers, while PUSO is where we go for excitement.

[Skink]

I was being generous including WIDI, admittedly. The best way to do it is just as you said only on steroids; some teams have "WIDI closets" full of boxes of materials collected for doing what you're saying but in a slightly more organized way. That's how the (arguably) best teams do it, anyway. I use some old tournament models for inspiration, as some supervisors really are creative and think of materials and ways to assemble them that might have eluded me.