Re: Density Lab B
Posted: December 25th, 2018, 2:59 pm
Last year when I was in hover, I literally just brought 1 sheet of paper with equations on it for all the competitions. Didn't even do that bad.pikachu4919 wrote:To add to this, even though the committee sets the parameters for the limit of notes that competitors can bring, it is the competitor's ultimate decision to decide how many notes they want to bring to the event. If you feel like you really only need one sheet of info even though the event allows a binder, by all means, you can decide to only bring that one sheet, and the judges won't stop you from doing that. They'll only get on you if you exceed the limit, which you clearly wouldn't be doing.chalker wrote:Different committees and rules chairs have different philosophies regarding notes. In my committee (Physics), the general philosophy is that we'll let you bring as many notes as you want. The logic behind this is many-fold, including:OrangeQuail9 wrote:Shouldn't Density Lab be a cheat sheet event? There are some formulas but not big complicated ones and it's mostly math so I don't really need that much information.
1. It reduces the burden on the event supervisor, who doesn't have to check / police the event for extra notes
2. It makes it more likely that event supervisors don't re-use tests from year to year
3. It ensures we don't unfairly treat competitors with poor eyesight who might not be able to read the microprint some competitors put on their note sheets
4. It helps incentivize competitors to research a much broader topic area (and bring corresponding notes to the event)
Speaking as a former competitor, I can say that if you put in the right amount of preparation into the event beforehand, then there isn't really a need to go to absurdly small font sizes or margins to fit all you need to fit on there (for single sheets of notes, that is - different story for those 6-inch binders I've sometimes seen around). Even though I didn't really do physics events, I can say that for the events I competed in, I noticed how much in the latter years of my career that I was actually struggling to fill my cheat sheets with information rather than cramming it to the edges with information due to how well I felt I knew the material. And to some extent, that could actually be more helpful in the long run. During the competition, that's lessens the amount of time you spend scouring your notes for the information you may need but you either 1) don't necessarily know where it is within your notes or 2) might not even have it at all. That can free up more time you can spend on taking the test, which is arguably more important. It ultimately depends on how much you are certain you know like the back of your hand and how much you feel maybe a little or a lot more shaky about.
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TL;DR: If you feel like you don't need an entire binder's worth of info, that's perfectly fine and possibly even more beneficial to you, and no one will stop you from bringing less. They'll only care if you bring more than you're allowed.
(tests would be preferred)