Scioly.org

lllazar wrote: I just have a question on Cephalopod morphology: Was the Siphuncle used to control buoyancy?

And jet propulsion in the water.

jazzy009 wrote:

lllazar wrote: I just have a question on Cephalopod morphology: Was the Siphuncle used to control buoyancy?

And jet propulsion in the water.

Thanks man...btw, random question, but how do you get stars? I joined like a few months ago and i have three...i dont know why though

I mean, i think its based on contribution to the scioly community...dunno.

Thanks

lllazar wrote:
Thanks man...btw, random question, but how do you get stars? I joined like a few months ago and i have three...i dont know why though

I mean, i think its based on contribution to the scioly community...dunno.

Thanks

It's all based on how often you post... well, relevant SO posts not in General Chat or Posting Games. I think it's like 10 is two stars, 50 is three stars and then 150 or something like that is 4 stars. If you want medals, contribute to the wiki.

Now that I've told you that, don't go spamming all the competition event threads

soobsession wrote:

lllazar wrote:
Thanks man...btw, random question, but how do you get stars? I joined like a few months ago and i have three...i dont know why though

I mean, i think its based on contribution to the scioly community...dunno.

Thanks

It's all based on how often you post... well, relevant SO posts not in General Chat or Posting Games. I think it's like 10 is two stars, 50 is three stars and then 150 or something like that is 4 stars. If you want medals, contribute to the wiki.

Now that I've told you that, don't go spamming all the competition event threads

I was hoping people would know me better than that...

Lol jk, this is an online forum....but thanks.

So State is in about 8 days....and im at an utter loss for wat to study/put in my binder (to me, the two are basically the same thing)...

I can ID every organism on the list without much difficulty (except Deinonychus vs velociraptor....)

Wat ive done:

Invertebrate and Vertebrate pages for each Genus, and more general knowledge for Orders/Classes/Phylum:

Time Range
Taxon
Mode of Life/Diet/Habitat
Anatomy/Morphology
Nicknames/Common Name
Other Facts
A picture
Distribution

For Plants, i did most of the above as well

Ive also done pages (multiple pages for each one) for the following:

Sedimentary Rocks (Coquina, Sandstone, Limestone, Shale, Coal, Chalk)
Radioactive Isotopes and their Half Lives/Daughter Isotopes
Index Fossil info, and a chart of Index Fossils
Modes of Preservation Info
Fossil Symmetry Types
Famous Fossil Locations and Famous Events/Discoveries

What else should i consider doing? Should i just study wat i have in my binder?

Make sure you can navigate your binder well. Poor organization can cost to a lot especially when there is little time. Also, it might be a good idea if you study some of the things in your binder. If you don't have a lot of time, you will be relying on what you know off the top of your head more than what you have in your resources.

soobsession wrote:Make sure you can navigate your binder well. Poor organization can cost to a lot especially when there is little time. Also, it might be a good idea if you study some of the things in your binder. If you don't have a lot of time, you will be relying on what you know off the top of your head more than what you have in your resources.

Ya i basically know my binder like i know the back of my hand...but knowing stuff off the top of my head is probably better than having to scramble through my binder.

Thanks.

lllazar wrote:

soobsession wrote:Make sure you can navigate your binder well. Poor organization can cost to a lot especially when there is little time. Also, it might be a good idea if you study some of the things in your binder. If you don't have a lot of time, you will be relying on what you know off the top of your head more than what you have in your resources.

Ya i basically know my binder like i know the back of my hand...but knowing stuff off the top of my head is probably better than having to scramble through my binder.

Thanks.

Yeah, when I did herpetology as States two years ago, my partner and I split up the binder, and we never really studied together. I used basically the same thing as my fossil template (short, concise, easy to read), but I didnt know what theyd ask and I didnt know my ID that well, so there was a lot of stuff missing, while my partner copied and pasted stuff in huge blocks, so while she had a ton of information, we didnt have time to actually find it. Needless to say, we didn't do great.

So you want a balance; enough information to be useful, but cut out extraneous info; otherwise, you wont have time to find everything you need.

gneissisnice wrote:

lllazar wrote:

soobsession wrote:Make sure you can navigate your binder well. Poor organization can cost to a lot especially when there is little time. Also, it might be a good idea if you study some of the things in your binder. If you don't have a lot of time, you will be relying on what you know off the top of your head more than what you have in your resources.

Ya i basically know my binder like i know the back of my hand...but knowing stuff off the top of my head is probably better than having to scramble through my binder.

Thanks.

Yeah, when I did herpetology as States two years ago, my partner and I split up the binder, and we never really studied together. I used basically the same thing as my fossil template (short, concise, easy to read), but I didnt know what theyd ask and I didnt know my ID that well, so there was a lot of stuff missing, while my partner copied and pasted stuff in huge blocks, so while she had a ton of information, we didnt have time to actually find it. Needless to say, we didn't do great.

So you want a balance; enough information to be useful, but cut out extraneous info; otherwise, you wont have time to find everything you need.

Hey...my partner doesn't know anything about fossils because she doesnt study for anything except ecology....however, i think im good enough to do well by myself at state. Will me being practically alone be a problem?

lllazar wrote:
Hey...my partner doesn't know anything about fossils because she doesnt study for anything except ecology....however, i think im good enough to do well by myself at state. Will me being practically alone be a problem?

Umm... it really depends on the test. At the Regionals test (which was a bit harder than the States one), I probably wouldn't have finished as well as I did without my partner. We basically work a system where I take care of the binder (since I made it and know it better) and he works on the field guide. When we encounter a question that we can't answer off the top of our heads, he looks in the field guide, I look in the binder. There were a lot more questions on the Regionals test so with two people, we worked a lot faster.

However, at States, the whole thing is IDing and it was mad easy. My partner seems to have trouble with IDing no matter what I tell him to do (it's not the biggest problem since I can ID them all, but it would be nice if he could too). He can go "that's a trilobite" or "that's a snail", but he can't go in more detail. The fact that he wasn't at our school last year and so he doesn't know the basics of bio or the difference between a Class and a Kingdom (though I did give him a nice outline on them all) doesn't help either. When it comes to that, I could run the event solo.

However, since you've got a week 'til States, you might as well give your partner a chance and make sure she can navigate the field guide or something. Therefore, you can tell her what to look for and have her find it in the field guide (if it isn't in the binder) and you guys can work faster.