Phenylethylamine wrote:Survivorship curves! I just remembered. Is that what you were talking about?
There are 3 types of organisms by survivorship. Type I is like humans- low probability of death at a young age (because the parents raise the children), high probability of death of old age. Type II, age has no effect on the probability of death- they're just as likely to die when they're young as when they're old. Type III is like fish or something- high probability of death of the young (so they have a LOT of offspring, most of which die, but there's still a decent number), but lower probability as they get older.
something like this. yeah. thanks! okay.. so survivorship curves? i'll try to remember
Nerds rule. Nerds are awesome. Nerds will someday (soon) rule the world. And you know it.
we probably would've gotten first on the illinois state test, except for those FIFTEEN questions asking us to identify various grassland plants, given their picture and a small description.
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chia wrote:we probably would've gotten first on the illinois state test, except for those FIFTEEN questions asking us to identify various grassland plants, given their picture and a small description.
That is pretty brutal. I had something similar except they didn't even give pictures. The best solution I have found: flash cards.
Write a lot on the essay questions (not so much that you're just BSing because they'll now that too). If they don't state specifically how many reasons to give to explain some sort of article or concept, just go as in depth as possible. Some of the ecology questions from previous nats tests have had rubrics that give 1 point per each part of an explanation to up to like 3 points. So you might think you fully explained the answer but have only explained one part and gotten less than the maximum amount of points. And read the questions more the once and make sure you answer everything they ask for. Double check your calculations and all of your answers if time allows; ecology tests at nats tend to be rather small in length and small mistakes can really kill you (I know this first hand).
It can't hurt to study really in depth, but the national ecology tests always seem to be more about understanding basic ecological principles and being able to apply them to explain why something occurs in nature.
I'd also look on the test exchange tests and just look at what some of the essays were, just find out about them in case it's on the test. Also if you don't know the nitrogen cycle, that is something you really need to find out about.