Entomology B/C

[havenbreadfish]

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.

The rules state that the insects to be identified are limited to those on the official insect list, so it's not really justified. By the rules saying "common name", I think they just mean "aphid" instead of "Aphididae". That's probably just caused by the person who wrote the test not being very familiar with the rules of the event.

[SOnerd]

Hey everyone!
My team made it to Nationals this year, and I was wondering if anyone here has any tips to prepare for the Nationals test.
I bet they will have really hard/trick questions, but I don't know what else I should add to my cheat sheet.
Thanks!

EDIT: I was also thinking of adding wing vein diagrams to my cheat sheet for each family. Does that seem worth it?

[dragonslikepi]

Well... state for me is tomorrow and I'm really nervous! My partner expects me to do well because they got all gold medals last year... GULP! So what are some good tips to help me get ready and steady? I mean I've invested lots of time into this event.

[ceg7654]

Hey everyone!
My team made it to Nationals this year, and I was wondering if anyone here has any tips to prepare for the Nationals test.
I bet they will have really hard/trick questions, but I don't know what else I should add to my cheat sheet.
Thanks!

EDIT: I was also thinking of adding wing vein diagrams to my cheat sheet for each family. Does that seem worth it?

Make sure you've got dichotomous keys good, they'll probably ask for that. Add insect world records and random fun facts as well to your cheat sheet.
Wing vein diagrams for each family seems a bit much, maybe just include a couple. Adding some is definitely worth it, but for each family is way too much.

Nice job making it to Nats! I wish I could go there...

Well... state for me is tomorrow and I'm really nervous! My partner expects me to do well because they got all gold medals last year... GULP! So what are some good tips to help me get ready and steady? I mean I've invested lots of time into this event.

Just do the question quiz that's located on this site over and over again for ID, and stare at Wikipedia pages for everything else.

[dragonslikepi]

OK thanks for the help.... our cheat sheet is really jam packed so I think I'll be ready if I can just identify.

[ceg7654]

OK thanks for the help.... our cheat sheet is really jam packed so I think I'll be ready if I can just identify.

No problem. Same here, I value ID over the other stuff even though I should probably work more on the other stuff since at the moment I'm waaay better at ID. However, the thing that's good about knowing ID really well is that you can do those really quickly and then spend the rest of your time focusing on the other questions. Even for stations, I just try to remember the question or write a note of what it's about really quickly, then I move to an ID station, do all those quickly, and spend the rest of that time going back to the other questions. It's a funny little system.

[gneissisnice]

OK thanks for the help.... our cheat sheet is really jam packed so I think I'll be ready if I can just identify.

No problem. Same here, I value ID over the other stuff even though I should probably work more on the other stuff since at the moment I'm waaay better at ID. However, the thing that's good about knowing ID really well is that you can do those really quickly and then spend the rest of your time focusing on the other questions. Even for stations, I just try to remember the question or write a note of what it's about really quickly, then I move to an ID station, do all those quickly, and spend the rest of that time going back to the other questions. It's a funny little system.

As someone who's done every ID event except birds (never rotated in for me, sadly), this is the key, in my opinion.

If you can't ID by sight, or at least significantly narrow down the choices to 2 or 3, you've already lost. There's never enough time to flip through your book to try to identify the specimen and then answer the questions, you need those 2 or 3 minutes to find the answers to the questions.

I ran the Rocks and Minerals event at the NY state tournament last week, and it was clear which teams were prepared. As I walked around, I saw many teams trying to identify specimens by flipping through their books, and as a result, could only correctly identify maybe two specimens out of five on a bigger station, without even getting to the multiple choice questions. Definitely can't finish the station if you need to spend more than a few seconds identifying.

I know that Entomology is different than Rocks and Minerals, but the same principle applies. ID is by far the most important aspect, everything else can come from your note sheet and book, in my opinion.

[dragonslikepi]

Here is how I did....

I got 2nd at state.... at the MO State competition. I bet it was due to the anatomy questions they gave us. Since our cheat sheet was filled with so much info about what each insect eats, where it lives, behavior, etc. There wasn't any space left to put in stuff about anatomy. For example: What part of an insect maintains the balance between the salt and water within it? I was totally lost.... another one asked where the food was stored. Well, we put down the midgut but that was where the digestion took place. It turned out it was the foregut that stored all of it.

They also asked about the types of legs of an insect and made us give examples. We put down "digging" and "predatory", but I guess they said it was wrong. It had to be fossorial and raptorial. But of course we didn't have space or enough thought to put it down or memorize.

Basically, all I'm saying, any suggestions so we can place at nationals?

[135scioly]

Yeah, that entomology test had some hard questions. My partner and I were fine with IDing for the most part, but the leg question threw us off, and that one station with the anatomy stuff. You probably need to know that stuff for nationals though, I'm guessing, because it is on the event manual sheet (internal and external anatomy). And I looked up the salt and water balance question, and I think the answer was either excretory system or maliphigian tubes?

[dragonslikepi]

Oh! You were there also! Which team were you guys and what division? How did you guys place? Yeah... I'm going to shake off this competition and test, my partner and I are hoping to place at Nationals... If we had gotten those stations right, with the legs and anatomy, I bet we would've gotten first. And the station with the identification with the mayfly.. it was like station 3. I think it was the mayfly, it looked like it but then they asked for the larvae form and that threw us off! We ended up picking the mayfly because it really appeared that way.. so what did you guys get? Anatomy=