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Maybe too many people are depending on the [wiki]Herpetology/Identification List[/wiki] for help.

At regionals, the Microbe Mission test was about 15 questions in total.. almost all were low level questions that asked: what type of cell is this? animal/protist/bacteria/fungi? There was one question that asked about the two inventors of the polio vaccine. Pretty upsetting considering the test didn't even touch on half of the rules. I thought the tests at regionals were supposed to be good.

wethose wrote:I thought the tests at regionals were supposed to be good.

Mans clearly never heard of NJ.

this was a double post of the next post

Unome wrote:This touches on something interesting I've noticed - everyone seems to suck at Herps ID. I don't know if there are even many teams who can ID more than 90% of specimens consistently, which I find a little strange since when I did Fossils, the top teams were able to ID pretty much every specimen near-perfectly. Is Herps ID just harder than Fossils ID?

Herps ID has some very nitpicky details. Each genus/family has extreme variation, and even top teams have trouble with these variable species. There are coral snakes that don't follow the red touches yellow rule, there are salamanders that mimic other genuses, there are snakes that could potentially belong in several genuses on the list (i.e. Coluber and Masticophis), there are turtles with practically identical plastrons except for small details that take a long time to find, and evne harder to make sure it's consistent for all specimens. There are of course, no brainers like snapping turtles and sea turtles and green snakes, but there are the select few that make it difficult.

When ID becomes closeups of feet, undersides of lizards, skeletons and skulls, closeups of eyes, etc. it gets worse. Of course there are identifiable features for each family/genus, but it takes a ton of practice.

When I did fossils, each fossil was unique, and nothing really blended into each other. There was a station at nats two years ago in fossils that was all ID and it was just plain easy. Herp ID involves looking at organisms that seem to look identical, or even should be in the same genus/family depending on different sources.

Anyway, I just wanted to put this out there. When my team is practicing ID, getting things wrong is just part of it.

Raven wrote:

Unome wrote:This touches on something interesting I've noticed - everyone seems to suck at Herps ID. I don't know if there are even many teams who can ID more than 90% of specimens consistently, which I find a little strange since when I did Fossils, the top teams were able to ID pretty much every specimen near-perfectly. Is Herps ID just harder than Fossils ID?

Herps ID has some very nitpicky details. Each genus/family has extreme variation, and even top teams have trouble with these variable species. There are coral snakes that don't follow the red touches yellow rule, there are salamanders that mimic other genuses, there are snakes that could potentially belong in several genuses on the list (i.e. Coluber and Masticophis), there are turtles with practically identical plastrons except for small details that take a long time to find, and evne harder to make sure it's consistent for all specimens. There are of course, no brainers like snapping turtles and sea turtles and green snakes, but there are the select few that make it difficult.

When ID becomes closeups of feet, undersides of lizards, skeletons and skulls, closeups of eyes, etc. it gets worse. Of course there are identifiable features for each family/genus, but it takes a ton of practice.

When I did fossils, each fossil was unique, and nothing really blended into each other. There was a station at nats two years ago in fossils that was all ID and it was just plain easy. Herp ID involves looking at organisms that seem to look identical, or even should be in the same genus/family depending on different sources.

Anyway, I just wanted to put this out there. When my team is practicing ID, getting things wrong is just part of it.

This is part of the issue we have been having (that and answering the wrong classification level smh). I know that I can personally ID between 70-90% depending on the picture quality, time, and whether or not they chose already used pictures.

WhatScience? wrote:

wethose wrote:I thought the tests at regionals were supposed to be good.

Mans clearly never heard of NJ.

I'm fairly sure this year's Microbe test was the exact same as last year's. It was a station test, which was somewhat tilting, but the questions were either really easy or really vague, and it was clear from the supervisors' responses to clarification questions that they were fairly scientifically illiterate.

At my regionals on Saturday, it seems (probably a little exaggerated) that around half the tests were the same as last year. When half (fine...7/15....) of your team were seniors, and graduate off, that's not very good for the team...

Hi all! I was the tournament director for SOUP this year. Great discussion, I’m glad to see people are voicing their opinions. Just to address a couple of things you’ve been talking about:

1- I def agree room was not ideal. Unfortunately, we aren’t able to find out about rooms until a couple weeks before the tournament due to the way the administration structures space rentals. Also, the classrooms that are ideal for these types of station events are super under lock and key because they have lots of fancy equipment . Varun did the best he could considering his space and time constraints.

2- with regards to 30 minutes for room changes/lunch, this is def something we’ll plan to do next year. From last year’s tournament feedback, a big complaint we got was that awards was too late (started at 5). This year we tried to bring it up by cramming a bit and now know that unfortunately time is too constraining to do any better than 5!

3- different test styles work for different people and we do the best we can to write good tests that will help you learn for future tournaments. Each event supervisor has their own method, and in the end writing is an art! We want to hear everything that worked and everything that didn’t, and please don’t hold back! Be as reserved or as vicious as you want. Just consider that the event supervisors for all of our events put in TONS of time prepping when you post.

If you have any feedback at all and attended, we’ll be sending feedback forms out to your coaches soon so feel free to tag comments on there. Or, probably better, just email us at pennscienceolympiad@gmail.com. All comments are extremely welcome and appreciated. Also feel free to dm me or whatever if you have general things. Thanks fam!

Herps is just poorly designed and implemented, imho. Outdated taxonomic info in nearly every Class & Order. Conflicting data everywhere; does this Order have 350 species or 565? Rana or Lithobates? How about Rana (Lithobates)? Depends on whether or not the event supervisor gets everything from Wikipedia... or even knows that there's a dispute

Plus, we are being asked to identify down to Genus by being presented, for the most part, with pictures of species! Which means that we need to know the individual species... In effect S.O. is saying no, no, no, you don't need to be able to identify by species and concurrently asking: What Genus is this individual species pictured here?

It's schizophrenic, at best.

They should restructure it along the lines of Anatomy - pick two subject areas and focus on them for the year.

N.B. Hey S.O. National staff: if you suggest using two field guides (three books) all about North American herps as suggested sources, come on out and tell everyone (especially event supervisors!) that we're explicitly studying the Herps of North America, not the entire world! Ask everyone who attended the UGA Invitational how Herps went.