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ceg7654 wrote:

SOnerd wrote:Another question...
Anyone have any good diagrams they use on your notes?
I am in the pre-competition cramming stage

Same here Mine is on Saturday and I hope I know enough.

Which guide do you use? The NWF one has a lot of really useful diagrams(they have some general ones in the front, then they have one for each order ), so I don't put any on my cheat sheet. If you have Audubon, then you should get diagrams similar to the NWF one. At my Regionals we had four fill in the diagram questions that I completed using my guide, because I didn't really study anatomy.

I think you should have one of the frontal view of the head, one for the insect integument, one for antennae, one for wings, and anything else you think you need. All those I just mentioned can be found in the NWF though.

Hope this helped!

Okay thanks!!
I use the Audubon. I really really hope I know enough for states this Saturday
My notes are CRAZY packed... The file is too big to email I have diagrams crazy packed in very tightly
I have also spent a fair amount of time highlighting information in my guide about all 30 orders and 100 families (took FOREVER) but I think it will help with quick location..

SOnerd wrote:I have also spent a fair amount of time highlighting information in my guide about all 30 orders and 100 families (took FOREVER) but I think it will help with quick location..

Honestly, what I have found is that efficiency is everything in identification events. If you can, memorize everything. If you can't... well, then you'd best make sure that you can find it.

silverheart7 wrote:

SOnerd wrote:I have also spent a fair amount of time highlighting information in my guide about all 30 orders and 100 families (took FOREVER) but I think it will help with quick location..

Honestly, what I have found is that efficiency is everything in identification events. If you can, memorize everything. If you can't... well, then you'd best make sure that you can find it.

Yeah I agree with that. I even have it color-coded
I put the page numbers on the notes and tabbed them by 25's so I think it won't be too bad. I just hope the test doesn't ask us for something it isn't supposed to

Yeah, I think that effective management of your resources is important in order to do well in ento. For regionals, my partner and I didn't prepare very much, but we managed to pull off 9th by having a good cheat sheet/tabbing our field guide meticulously. Fast forward to states today, and, well, we got MASSACRED! At that stage, I think that you basically need to be able to identify bugs by sight and have an idea of their scientific name without having to flip helplessly through a guidebook for a minute like we did. It was still really fun, and although I'm admittedly not the biggest fan of insects, I'm glad I had the opportunity to do this event.

Pigeon wrote:Yeah, I think that effective management of your resources is important in order to do well in ento. For regionals, my partner and I didn't prepare very much, but we managed to pull off 9th by having a good cheat sheet/tabbing our field guide meticulously. Fast forward to states today, and, well, we got MASSACRED! At that stage, I think that you basically need to be able to identify bugs by sight and have an idea of their scientific name without having to flip helplessly through a guidebook for a minute like we did. It was still really fun, and although I'm admittedly not the biggest fan of insects, I'm glad I had the opportunity to do this event.

I agree with that. At our 2nd invite, my partner and I tried to use our field guide for ID. Usually not the best plan...
It is good just to know them or to have them all on your cheat sheet.
There were a few really tricky ID's on our state test that we actually had to use the field guide for though

Has anyone had states yet?
How was the test?
At my state tournament, the test was about 20ish stations with no time limit, just the 50 minutes.
Most of the ID's just asked for the order, and there were questions about anatomy, mating, impact......
It was pretty easy, but some of the preserved specimens were broken a little.

SOnerd wrote:Has anyone had states yet?
How was the test?
At my state tournament, the test was about 20ish stations with no time limit, just the 50 minutes.
Most of the ID's just asked for the order, and there were questions about anatomy, mating, impact......
It was pretty easy, but some of the preserved specimens were broken a little.

That sounds similar to our region's test. Was there only one ID per station, like our region, or were there multiple?

havenbreadfish wrote:

SOnerd wrote:Has anyone had states yet?
How was the test?
At my state tournament, the test was about 20ish stations with no time limit, just the 50 minutes.
Most of the ID's just asked for the order, and there were questions about anatomy, mating, impact......
It was pretty easy, but some of the preserved specimens were broken a little.

That sounds similar to our region's test. Was there only one ID per station, like our region, or were there multiple?

There was only one. It was usually only to the order.

At our States, we had stations, but I didn't count how many. 90 questions in 50 minutes, all short answer or matching, and four minutes per station. We had regular ID, impact, metamorphosis, and random questions like "why are moths attracted to light?" etc. The ID had both pinned insects and pictures. Overall a good tests except that we got asked for metamorphosis on a non-list order(Embioptera) which was okay since it was in our guide, but I'm still a little irritated they asked for non-list stuff. There was one that I just couldn't ID no matter what, and that really bothered me because I couldn't even figure out the order, much less the family(though the question asked for order). I looked through the whole guide, and was going crazy just trying to figure it out, even after the test I was looking for what it could have been. I told everyone who asked me how it went that there was this one that I just couldn't figure out(which really surprised me because my partner and I are both really strong in ID), and they all rolled their eyes and told me that one question didn't matter that much, but it wasn't about scoring, it was about ability. I've never, EVER had that happen before, where I can't even get the order. It was frustrating. But also kind of funny.

Hi everyone!
I just had a question. At an invite, they asked us to put common names and so we did (according to our list). However when we received our test back, they marked us half for all the common names because say for aphids, they wanted "wooly aphid"

Is that justified? Since this event is coming back next year, I just wanted to make sure that yes, we do go by our list or we have to specify like species.