WhatScience? wrote:whythelongface wrote:WhatScience? wrote:
Its just I believe science should be more about logic than just cramming everything you can. I guess that is why I prefer my phyics and chem events but to each his own I suppose.
That depends on whose test you're taking. There are good tests, and there are bad tests. However, keep in mind that microbiology, pathology and immunology are some of the most memorization-rigorous areas of biology, so do not be surprised by a test that seems to expect you've crammed every single bit of knowledge into your brain/your notesheet.
But if there is so much to memorize don't you think that more notes should be allowed than 2 pages like some other events?
I feel like the people who designed these events were thinking solely about the amount of time spent cramming obscure information while those who designed some of the physics and chem events are fine with you bringing more notes and that they want to test about how well you grasp the subject in a more practical setting. That is why the one bio event I am doing this year will be Disease Dets because after doing it last year I can say that with the case studies it is somewhat practical while the multiple choice test import information vs. obscure information. Your thoughts?
P.S. people other than whythelongface, I would be interested in hearing your opinions too.
Fair enough. In addition to Microbe Mission, I also do Remote Sensing and Rocks and Minerals, both of which allow more notes. RemSen allows two sheets, front and back, and R&M is a binder event.
With a binder event like Rocks and Minerals, the less you have, the better, simply because too much makes it hard to locate information. While I've observed many other teams walking into the room with gigantic binders bulging with pages, I keep mine light and thin, a strategy I think works fairly well. During the test, which is station-based, I can easily find any charts, figures, or facts that I need in under twenty seconds, important when you only have a very limited amount of time to answer things.
I think Remote Sensing is sensible with the amount it expects you to memorize and the amount that can be committed to paper. My partner and I maintain one side filled with specifics on satellites and sensors, another side on principles and definitions, and the other sheet is completely dedicated to formulas and pictures. I feel like that's reasonable, since pictures and formulas are very hard to memorize and prove very important to the event.
For Microbe Mission, however, I find that my arrangement works fairly well. With each invitational my partner and I would take out parts that we'd become so familiar with that we no longer needed it on paper, and instead replaced it with concepts that we didn't understand as well in previous tests. I figure I've cycled about 50% of my original notesheet out, but I'll be using the same one I used at last year's competitions for this year's competitions as well. And in my honest opinion, aside from some massive principles, biology isn't the kind of subject you can just make your own ideas out of. It's a very memorization-intensive subject, and Microbe Mission is pure biology. Disease may be better; I've never done it, but statistics in general is more inviting for people to make their own interpretations and present their own ideas. Microbe, on the other hand, is comprised of information extracted from pure experimentation over maybe a century, which is why it's so memorization-intensive.
Obviously, I'd love to have more space for notes, but I think the current arrangement is manageable. Of course, memorization of facts isn't everyone's cup of tea. I also know that Microbe Mission notesheets by nature are very compressed - I was surprised that other events had so much space and found myself struggling to fill up all the space for, say, Remote Sensing.
Edit: which tests did you take? I did quite a few for practice, so I'm curious.