2012 USABO Thread

<p>although this question has probably already been answered, im too lazy to read through all 51 pages of this thread. When is the ideal time to take the test?</p>

<p>For this year the testing period has already ended.</p>

<p>If you mean in general, meaning what grade, it depends on the person. Some people have done very well as freshmen like tigertwist who got a 41 on the open and some people rather wait until they have had a formal class in biology.</p>

<p>Just out of curiosity, how many people received the 40, 41, and 42 on the open exam?</p>

<p>A few pages back there is a histogram of the scores from the open exam. Though I believe that there was one of each score.</p>

<p>Yup, saw the histogram, but wasn’t sure about the exact numbers :)</p>

<p>Was last year’s part C really worth 40 points, for a total of 160?? Then a cut-off of 93 for finalists last year sounds too low…</p>

<p>Please tell me this year’s Part C is NOT worth 40 points…or even 20 points for that matter. >.<</p>

<p>Yeah, I’m very confused about part C. I don’t want to reveal any questions, so I’ll just say it was very… strange. I don’t think it’ll be worth 40 points, I think more like 20-30. Anyone have any guesses?</p>

<p>Also, is it safe to start discussing questions by Wednesday?</p>

<p>Little birdie tells me that part B is being graded double points.</p>

<p>Yes, discussion can begin on Wednesday (tomorrow).</p>

<p>Yes, part B is 2 points each (unless otherwise noted).</p>

<p>Part C did not apparently clarify exactly how many points it was worth.</p>

<p>Did you guys generally think the semifinal was difficult or easy? Also, how many of you completely did the second part of part C? The one where you had to fill out the table.</p>

<p>lets begin discussion please? I think i did quite bad but still ;d</p>

<p>I had that table memorized</p>

<p>is it worth doing usacho as a senior? D;</p>

<p>^ is usacho and usnco the same thing?</p>

<p>yes, I mean the local exam since you get the results soo late… Cause I got a 52 this year(you only need a 50 in my region) but 2 other kids got a 53 and 54 and only 2 kids can be nominated from one school. :[ I am very frustrated since i studied a lot for it ._.</p>

<p>10 char</p>

<p>That’s nothing; in certain states (like California) they went back and decided that they had too many semifinalists, and so made it so only the top one person from each school could move on. This was after the open exam results had been known to the students. </p>

<p>And by the way, USNCO = Chem Olympiad; USAChO = compsci olympiad</p>

<p>Nah; USACO is computing oly. cho stands for nothing</p>

<p>ok thanks haha</p>

<p>Are any of you guys doing the physics olympiad next year? ;D</p>

<p>@darksigma - where had you seen the table before? My S did not answer the last 2 on that section. What were the answers? What was the value of section C? My S said that he thinks that the first problem was 4 points for each answer, but then he thinks that the second problem gave an overall point value (20?), but not an individual answer value.</p>

<p>To help answer your question, crazymomster, i haven’t seen that specific table before but the hormones were covered in the endocrine system chapter of Campbell’s. I believe the glycoproteins were FSH, LH, and TSH, and prolactin was a polypeptide. Progesterone was a steroid. The regulation column was rather ambiguous though.</p>