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I was expecting harder anatomy and physiology, more nest/egg ID, and harder vocalizations. The A&P questions were so elementary and the entire station system was chaotic.

Yes, and gull plumages are pretty difficult too, partly because pictures of every stage are so rare online. I'm happy they only had 3 gulls on the states/regionals list.

The most difficult part of ornithology isn't really the identification, mostly because they usually only give you males to identify, but the random facts about each bird that you only have two minutes to answer. Knowing those are the key to doing well at the event.

Edit: Yeah, there were a few nest questions at the state level but none about eggs, and there were only three vocalizations. Mostly the test was straightforward identification and then looking things up in your field guide.

what did you guys get as the last bird call on the nationals test?

i sort of agree with the a&p part, its just that i didnt look up a lot of the stuff that happened to be on the nationals test, like the labeling the parts of an egg. i had every other possible information on eggs, such as nests, clutch size, egg color and size, incubation, everything but the parts of an egg.

mostly i just think there was a lot of vocab words that were really out there and i didnt know. maybe not everyone felt this way because they knew all the definitions, but when i tried to look up bird vocab the internet just came up with basic ones, nothing like the words on the nationals test. does anyone know a good place to study hard bird vocabulary?

i got 7th in fossils and just thought that it was way to easy as a National test...

FueL wrote:

googlyfrog wrote:

ahsettle23 wrote:I just saw two emus on the side of the road.

EDIT: What was the nats test like?????????????

Also, time to start talking about next year! This event would be perfect if they:

1. Allowed us binders
2. Shortened the list (just a little bit!)

Well, a short list could be hard if they put more similar-looking birds on there. There were at most 2 or 3 birds at a time that look very similar this year, but if they shortened the list and had more similar looking birds, it would make the event a lot harder. Or a couple of birds that don't really have any distinguishing features, but that's almost impossible.

i think it is fine since in realty with nothing like some test events are, shows true knowledge and not who can fits tons of stuff on a paper and look it up really fast... I think if it was harder i would have got a medal. Untimed stations is nuts...

amerikestrel wrote:I don't think they should shorten the list and give us binders. The problem is it's extremely difficult to know specific details about 185 species of birds, but this could be achieved with the help of binders. Or they could keep binders out and shorten the list slightly. The length of the ornithology list is so much longer than the fossil list, for example, and in fossils you can use binders. I think that this takes away from the quality of this event.

In reality though, I highly doubt that they will do either. I'd say there's a 5% chance of us getting binders. As for the list, they will almost certainly modify it a bit, but there probably won't be any major changes.

But there is a lot more to know about each fossil on the list as opposed to each bird. For fossils, you have to know like absolutely everything about each fossil, but for birds, you only have to know 99.99% of everything about it.

Yes, the test for C in Birds at Nats was extremely easy. Rather unfortunate, I do think I could've done much better than 16th otherwise. The test definitely contained many unmarked tiebreakers because I can assure you that we didn't get 15 or more of the 70-some questions on the test. The system of having untimed stations was a bad idea, although it didn't hurt people much because there was plenty of time. The thing is that if it was a good, difficult test, that system would not worked well at all.

Basically what they should have done was timed stations with questions designed in a way that the top team would get no higher than about an 80%, any test easier than that is too easy.

sciencegeek100 wrote:

googlyfrog wrote:

ahsettle23 wrote:I just saw two emus on the side of the road.

EDIT: What was the nats test like?????????????

Also, time to start talking about next year! This event would be perfect if they:

1. Allowed us binders
2. Shortened the list (just a little bit!)

Well, a short list could be hard if they put more similar-looking birds on there. There were at most 2 or 3 birds at a time that look very similar this year, but if they shortened the list and had more similar looking birds, it would make the event a lot harder. Or a couple of birds that don't really have any distinguishing features, but that's almost impossible.

i think it is fine since in realty with nothing like some test events are, shows true knowledge and not who can fits tons of stuff on a paper and look it up really fast... I think if it was harder i would have got a medal. Untimed stations is nuts...

The creation of a good binder is in no way just "who can fits tons of stuff on a paper and look it up really fast...". Creating a truly excellent binder is something that takes a huge amount of time, effort, and studying. A binder that is giant full of webpages will not be of much help on a good test without much excess time, you will never have time to locate the information. You will still need to know much of the information even with a good binder or else you may not finish in a reasonable amount of time. If however you take the time to consolidate and organize the information well, you really have to put in a massive amount of work, that work is later rewarded. Binders are especially useful in ID events because due to the long lists of taxon and wide amount of information that can be asked about any of them, it is really not possible to remember every single one of the dozens if not hundreds of small details and bits of information for each and every taxon. Letting only books and not binders is really just completely pointless, books can be made into binders. People will find the ways to consolidate the information and organize it in this form. The only real difference between the two is that effectively utilizing a book with the same amount of relevant information as a binder is far more difficult. I am extremely against allowing only books in any identification event. The purpose of this is largely to help teams that don't put in the same amount of time and work to be able to do at least some of the identification by using the book as an aid. You really shouldn't need much of an aid in identification. I could actually respect the idea of not allowing any resources except for a sheet or two in an ID event actually. I would be very annoyed with that if I was competing in the event personally, however it would address the "problem" (though I don't see it as one) of people compiling information instead of learning it. Certainly no resources would be a horrible idea because of the number of statistics that exist for each bird (i.e. size, wingspan, egg details, nest details, gender roles, etc.). Allowing a sheet would allow teams to deal with all of those statistics while still requiring knowledge of most more complex things such as habitat and behavior. I still believe that a binder should be allowed, but I can tell you know, there will not be a binder. The rules committees don't like binders much, they may take them away, but they would seldom give them back.

I think binders need to be brought back. I don't think it's likely, but it gives the opportunity to learn a lot of material. I was amazingly good at fossils last year, and I think that my time making the binder helped me learn. Plus, the tests can be much harder.
I dream of it, but I don't it will happen.

binders would be quite helpful, because guide books are just that, guides. they are not comprehensive enough on any bird, and binde4rs would help us get important info on, without having to worry if that info has been published in a book or not. Our state test had lots of female and baby species, but the females were obvious (like a hooded merganser), and the babies were multiple choice.

True, sometimes guides don't provide enough info to get a question right, but you can write info in the guide if you just look it up.