Re: Illinois 2017
Posted: March 27th, 2017, 8:31 pm
Bringing this over here forum from General (and performing a bit of thread necromancy) but I wanted to respond to a couple things specific to how we roll in IL.Skink wrote:
A. S/N-exclusive topics
These showing up at lower competition levels (especially at invitationals, which, as I understand, are considered below R level, but there are numerous reports of competitive invitational tests employing S/N level topics because of the present teams) favors the higher-end teams, where the lower-and-middling ones lose out at the invitational level and risk losing out at the Regional level (where arbitration teams hardly have the time to bother with relative trivialities like this).
B. C division-exclusive topics
This is why I've attempted to get your attention because the event in question right now is Optics. On tests at, at least, two competitive invitationals that my B teams attended this season plus Regionals, Snell's Law problems (and multiple of them, typically!) have appeared when the rules are black-and-white clear that it's not testable. I had a nice chat with a colleague about this who showed no concern for the problem, noting the usual "What's unfair to everyone is fair to everyone." and that it's a good way to separate teams. I don't believe that applies here, though, because the rules that everybody agreed to play by specifically exclude problems like this from competition; you can apply the same concept to the S/N topics, too.
A. Arbitration teams in IL do bother with relative trivialities* likes that. In the end you're right that we sometimes will apply the "equally unfair to all" rule but in a number of tests events it's just as easy to throw out a particular question that shouldn't have been there. Generally only a team that has complained to us finds out about it but we take the integrity of the competition serious in IL. We aren't perfect (even before we get into the places where reasonable people can disagree) but I am proud of the overall quality of tournaments and hope that your students feel that on the whole they've gotten fair shakes .
B. At the regional level I am aware of a couple issues around Snell's at the B level. I can tell you that what has been brought to our attention has checked out. I am not an expert at optics, so I've had to consult with others especially a colleague who is the Div C State Supervisor, but it seems like the line between Snell's and index of refraction is blurry. It seems that there are HARD index of refraction questions that you could solve using either formula. Given the questions I've read, and my not expert understanding of the topic, I definitely understand how a student could come away thinking it was a Snell's law question even when it wasn't.
Hope you (and/or others) find either or both these points informative.
*This area might not be our most important work but teams will bring issues far more trivial to our attention than inappropriate test topics.
