<p>@blueroses67 sorry, but I’m still a little bit confused. So if something like the virus detail (basically, any details) I posted above appears in the book, we shouldn’t memorize it?</p>
<p>@kwkingdom: Right, if the taxonomy word is in Campbell but not in the syllabus, the syllabus wins and you don’t have to know it. If it’s in the syllabus but not Campbell, go ask Google, because it’s fair game.</p>
<p>For example, you don’t have to know (yet) that the clade of nematodes + arthropods is called Ecdysoa…but you do need to know nematodes and arthropods, that they both have cuticles that they shed, and that they are more closely related to each other than they would be to, say, mollusks.</p>
<p>For viruses, you don’t have any extra taxonomy in the syllabus, but you should know that there are different kinds of viral life cycles and what’s special about them.</p>
<p>I think I offered in a previous thread to hand out my notes. They’re [here[/url</a>], but I must warn you that they’re incredibly incomplete. I kind of gave up in mid-chapter-forty or so, and I tend to skip over stuff I already knew. These were done over a year ago (and really haven’t been looked at since May 2010ish), before I ever got my hands on things like Raven and Alberts and the other Raven. They’re really nothing more than a condensed version of about 3/4 of Campbell in seven-point font.</p>
<p>In other words: my notes are neither necessary nor sufficient, but they could (in theory) be helpful.</p>
<p>Maybe.</p>
<p>(Probably not.)</p>
<p>Oh, and IBO results! WOOT! We totally pwned - </p>
<p>Rebecca Shi - 1st, Gold
Charles Du - 3th, Gold
Chelsea Voss - 4th, Gold
Shulin Ye - 7th, Gold</p>
<p>I can confirm that the IBO syllabus is changing - final version to be voted on in November. Yay! </p>
<p>@JadenSmith:</p>
<p>Alberts truly is a great book - seriously. It’s the one I read when I’m bored and want something to do. It made stuff that was simply stated in Campbell make a lot more sense. (For example - why is the TATA box the TATA box and not the CGCG box? Well, it’s because T and A only form two hydrogen bonds and thus are easier to pull apart.)</p>
<p>Never touched Voets, if only because I could never get my hands on a copy. </p>
<p>@ Prac: Campbell gets better. I think you’re just about done with the worst of it. The twenties and thirties are pretty straightforward (lots of memorization) and forties aren’t all that bad. (Just that blasted animal development chapter). The fifties are downright easy.</p>
<p>But oldguy is right - learn to love Campbell. You’ll be seeing a lot of the book.</p>
<p>@ kwkingdom123</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Anything in Campbell is fair game. Even the most tiny details, only with the exception of names and dates. (Mostly. I distinctly remember some names showing up before…)</p>
<p>Only place I’ll disagree with blueroses - I would go for the taxonomy in Campbell over the taxonomy in the IBO guide, right now, if only because we don’t know what the IBO guide will look like come November, and I’d guess that they’d update it rather than, you know, take it back to the 17th century. </p>
<p>But like what blueroses said - there’s a lot you can BS if you happen to know some Greek/Latin. Ecdysozoa, to steal her example, comes from the Greek words ecdysis (molting) and zoon (animal). (Source: [url=<a href=“http://www.infosources.org/what_is/Ecdysozoa.html]Ecdysozoa[/url]”>http://www.infosources.org/what_is/Ecdysozoa.html]Ecdysozoa](<a href=“http://db.tt/Rwoiy1O"]here[/url”>http://db.tt/Rwoiy1O)</a>). </p>
<p>@ Mansu007 - not too late. First year I qualified for Nationals, I didn’t know what USABO was until I received the Open. (the Open is mandatory at my school for the junior class.) And it will be easier this year - all the golds and three of the silvers are graduating, for example.</p>
<p>@NightShadeQueen So when you said even the most minute details, does that mean we have to memorize line by line for the books to make it to semi or finals?</p>
<p>Wow NightShadeQueen, your notes look fabulous - I think I will use it for last minute studying on the bus and such. So I will definitely get Alberts - thank you guys for guiding me. So right now I would have read Campbell Biology, Raven General Biology, and Genetics (forget by who). So I will go for Raven Plants and then Alberts Biochem and I should be good then for getting into finals?</p>
<p>just curious: what kind of notes do all of you take, if any at all?</p>
<p>@NightShadeQueen, I saw your notes, and they look amazing!
(Some interesting fonts towards the end :P)</p>
<p>Also, what kind of timeframe are you all giving yourselves for reading Campbell’s through, in its entirety, once?</p>
<p>I don’t ever take notes. When I do, my mind just sorta glazes out and I stop paying attention to what I’m reading. (Mandatory handwritten notes for APUSH next year will be trouble x.x)</p>
<p>I think that, generally, by high school you know how well you get along with taking notes.</p>
<p>How do people even study for USABO? Almost every single line has either details or some key concepts. Since NightShadeQueen said we needed details, does that mean we need to know the entire book word by word, line by line?</p>
<p>I tried taking notes, but quickly decided it was more trouble than it was worth. As kwkingdom says, Campbell itself is pretty abridged - you can think of it as the Cliffs Notes version of a shelf’s worth of undergrad biology textbooks. And you’re going to need to shovel most of it into your brain sooner or later.</p>
<p>As for detail level…well, let me paint a picture for you. It’s late at night, and blueroses is locked in a dorm room at Purdue with a few other similarly twisted USABO veterans. The caffeine is wearing off, her brain is fried, she wants to go to #^$%ing sleep, but the animal physiology section won’t finish itself. With a curse and a sigh, she flips Campbell to a random page, and sees a diagram of a compound eye (50.17b in v8). Two minutes later, another question has been added to the pile.</p>
<p>"Light enters the ommatidium and is converted to a chemical signal. From first to last, in what order does the light or signal pass through the following structures:</p>
<pre><code> I. Axon
II. Cornea
III. Crystalline cone
IV. Photoreceptor
V. Rhabdom
</code></pre>
<p>A. I, II, III, IV, V
B. II, III, IV, V, I
C. II, III, V, IV, I
D. II, V, IV, III, I
E. III, V, IV, I, II"</p>
<p>It’s not like you’re going to be asked to recite the text verbatim. (quick! what’s the third paragraph on p. 472? um, no.) However, you WILL get pounded on the details. If it’s in a figure or a table, it’s even better question-bait.</p>
<p>(The answer is C, btw. And I just made that question up…no actual past exams were harmed in the writing of this scenario.)</p>
<p>Edit: And of course, not all of the questions are straight recall. Here’s one from a practice packet:</p>
<p>“Read the lyrics for the song ‘I’m my own grandpa’. If the narrator’s baby son has a rare autosomal recessive trait, what is the probability that the narrator’s father’s baby son has it too?”</p>
<p>Do we need to know how to draw the structures for chemicals like acetic acid, or glucose?</p>
<p>^I would think so, especially glucose.</p>
<p>I have a question regarding, how do you join it? Does your school pay for the exam?</p>
<p>You have to get your school to register. Then, I think that the school pays a flat fee of something like $75, which allows an unlimited number of people for your school to sit for the Open exam. So, just ask a teacher to look into it, and have the school register and pay.</p>
<p>For more info. here’s the USABO website’s section pom registration:<br>
[USABO:</a> Teacher Information & Registration | Center for Excellence in Education](<a href=“http://www.cee.org/programs/usabo/teacher-info]USABO:”>http://www.cee.org/programs/usabo/teacher-info)</p>
<p>@blueroses:</p>
<p>Yeah, I made those notes in like '09-'10 and haven’t touched them since I gave up in the mid-ch 40s. They were mostly made because just staring at a page doesn’t get things into my mind, but writing/typing something up will. That and the fact that it’s much less impolite to be seen staring at my laptop screen than at Campbell when I’m, say, in the middle of my history class. ^^ </p>
<p>Although I must say, I’ve always envied Blue*'s Campbell-in-flashcards. Very portable. </p>
<p>*I’m referring to this year’s team by the colors of our lab coats, for identity-concealment purposes.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Well, personally I’d find the structure of acetic acid to be ridiculously easy (it’s just ethanoic acid, right? CH3COOH?) but I do remember a time when I knew, say, the entirety of glycolysis, structures and all.</p>
<p>But yeah: structures I would definitely consider knowing: carbohydrate monomers (glucose, fructose, ribose, etc.), all the amino acids, maybe nucleotides, what your basic lipid looks like, and other stuff that seems reasonably non-obscure. Additionally, I’d add knowing basic organic nomenclature (methyl, ethyl, propyl, butyl, -ane vs -yne vs -ene, etc.)</p>
<p>@NightShadeQueen:
When you say “Campbell-in-flashcards,” do you mean that this person literally copied Campbell’s word-for-word onto flashcards or that he/she took notes on the entire book on flashcards, which he/she carried around with him/her?</p>
<p>I heard 90% of Campbell+50% of Raven is good enough to be a finalist. Can anybody verify that and what 50% of Raven do you need?</p>
<p>What is Alberts? Molecular Biology of the Cell? And if I thoroughly study Campbell’s, Raven’s Plant, and this ‘Alberts’ book, do I stand a good chance at making finals?</p>
<p>How much time per day did you finalists spend studying? For how many months?</p>
<p>@kait444</p>
<p>Xe* took notes on the majority of the book on notecards.</p>
<p>*Apparently, this is supposed to be some sort of nongendered third-person singular. I still think it looks wierd.</p>
<p>@kwkingdom123</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>That sounds suspiciously like something I said upthread:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I’d like to clarify. 90% of Campbell + 50% of Raven’s Plants is not * guaranteed* to get you to Nationals. NOTHING is guaranteed to get you into finals. It was just that, in my opinion, when you’re at 90% of Campbell, your time might be better spent starting on another book.</p>
<p>And the answer to any question relating to what you have to know: the only correct answer is “Everything”.</p>
<p>@Studious Maximus:</p>
<p>[USABO</a> books](<a href=“USABO - OpenWetWare”>USABO - OpenWetWare) - some of these I agree with; others are outdated.</p>
<p>This is my book list recommendation:</p>
<p>1a. **Biology by Campbell and Reece<a href=“ie” title=“Campbell”, “Campbell and Reece”, “Campbell, Reece, and a whole pile of unfortunate authors that are almost never mentioned”>/b</a>: Any edition from 6th-8th is probably okay. I haven’t seen/vetted the 9th yet, but honestly I doubt it’s worth the extra expense if you don’t already have a copy.</p>
<p>1b. **Biology by Raven, Johnson, Losos, and Singer<a href=“ie” title=“Raven”, “Raven’s Biology”. To be distinguished from “Raven’s Biology of Plants”>/b</a>: Firstly, avoid the 9th edition at all costs. Secondly, if you’ve already studied Campbell, Raven’s Biology may be a waste of time, since it and Campbell cover similar things. Worth a skim, maybe, if you have considerable time left over. If you can’t get your hands on Campbell/really, really dislike Campbell’s style, I’d try Raven.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>**Biology of Plants by Raven, Evert, and Eichhorn.<a href=“ie” title=“Raven’s Biology of Plants”, “Biology of Plants”. To be distinguished from “Raven’s Biology”>/b</a>: Most definitely worth reading, after Campbell/Raven’s Biology. Lots of info that wasn’t in Campbell/Raven’s Biology.</p></li>
<li><p>**Biochemistry by Voet and Voet<a href=“ie” title=“Voets” or “Voet and Voet”>/b</a>. Never read it, but that was due to lack of access and not lack of desire. A couple people at Finals this year has read it, I think. Worth it if you want to sound really, really smart, but not sure it’s all that useful for the competition. That said - I’m still trying to track down a copy to read. </p></li>
<li><p>**Molecular Biology of the Cell by Alberts, Johnson, Lewis, Raff, Roberts, and Walter<a href=“ie” title=“Alberts”>/b</a>: Might be worth a single read-through, but it is truly way too detailed for the competition. One exception might be the chapter on experimental techniques.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Books I have no clue about:</p>
<p>Life: The Science of Biology by Purves, Orians, Heller and Sadava</p>
<p>Modern Genetic Analysis: Integrating Genes and Genomes by Griffiths, Gelbart, Lewontin, and Mille: Kind of want to take a look.</p>
<p>The Ultimate Study Guide for Biology by Leonard: I doubt this will be too particularly helpful, as the fact that it’s really short makes it…well, unlikely to be detailed enough.</p>
<p>@NSQ: Thank you so much for your timely reply. So you made it to finals (and IBO?) with just Campbell’s and Raven’s Plant?</p>
<p>Once again, how many hours per day did you (or any other finalist) dedicate to Biology? </p>
<p>I already own Campbell’s 8th. I’m contemplating purchasing Raven’s Plant. Do you think it’s worth it?</p>
<p>Finally, can anyone give me a very brief outline of the hardest/most study heavy chapters of Campbell’s? Just the chapters I should spend extra attention on? Something like: ‘Unit 1: Not much to study, pay close attention to chapters ____ and concepts _____. Unit 2: Lots of memorization blah blah blah’ would suffice.</p>
<p>Raven’s plant is worth the investment so many times over. You don’t necessarily need to get a shiny new edition. I got mine off Ebay for about 10 bucks, more or less, and it worked fine. Camp is very plant-heavy, so most finalists have read it, and if you haven’t, you’ll probably be lost when you get to camp.</p>
<p>I can’t speak for the other finalists, but I started reading Campbell freshman year. I never really treated it at studying per se (do x pages of reading, x hours per day, x days per week) - it was more like plain recreational reading. I did do Science Bowl/Quiz Bowl over 9th and 10th grade so that provided an incentive to be consistent with studying. Ultimately, though, like NightShadeQueen said, you’re never going to be able to be 100% prepared and there will never be a magic prescription of study time that will get you to camp.</p>
<p>Many people like different sections of Campbell or have different opinions about them. I can speak for myself, but other people will definitely have different ideas. Personally, I’m better at the molecular/chemical side of bio so I think that those chapters are more or less a breeze. IMO the hard parts are at phylogeny/classification, which I always tended to gloss over (“it’s not real science!”), but as blueroses mentioned, you will have to know the taxonomical stuff. I also think careful attention should be paid to the plants section, 'cause all things plant-related are disproportionately relevant at camp, and also because you should first have a foundation in botany before moving onto something like Raven.</p>
<p>Also, Chapter 47 (I believe) - Animal Development - is Legendary. If you can master that, I bow before you.</p>