"Official" 2014 USABO thread

Test Preparation AP Sciences
361

<p>i literally forgot all biology. i swear i forget how dna is replicated no joke i forgot about direction and primers and alll that. when r scores up?</p>

362

<p>march 5 “TENTATIVELY”</p>

363

<p>LET’s pick up the momentum on this forum!</p>

364

<p>I’m fricking scared.</p>

<p>I was scoring 30-35 on practice tests, but then I started bombing them right before the real thing (e.g. 20-30). The same thing happened on the AMC 12, and I got a 100.5.</p>

365

<p>Just be calm and relax man. I know exactly how you feel! My highest was a 41 on 2013 test (I took a day before), but I feel like I got around 29 on this test. Don’t let the results get to you; expect the best for yourself! :slight_smile: </p>

366

<p>Inquilinism YO</p>

367

<p>F**k! I am THE LeafAF. I AM HELIX EVOLUTIOSSNDN</p>

<p>YEEAYEEH</p>

<p>HELIX PRAISE THE LOOORDDD</p>

<p>YES. i AM </p>

<p>evo</p>

368

<p>how did you guys prepare for the open exam? did you just read Campell Biology 10x? what other books did you study besides Campbell? Best of luck to you all!</p>

369

<p>Hey everyone. I’m an old USABO alum (and current question writer) and I’m putting together a guide to the IBO. I’ve written the first chapter. You guys are gearing up for semis, so you might be inclined to read it and give me some feedback. Enjoy!</p>

<p><a href=“File:Kaull USABO Tactics.pdf - OpenWetWare”>http://openwetware.org/wiki/Image:Kaull_USABO_Tactics.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Let me know:

  1. Is there anything I’ve missed?
  2. Is there anything else you’d like to see?
  3. Would you actually buy this if I get off my bum and finish it? =)</p>
370

<p>blueroses that is a very nice guide. It reminders me, though, that I thought I saw an incorrect question on the open exam. It asked for klienfelter’s syndrome, but XXY was not a choice. XXYY was a choice though. I don’t know if I didn’t read carefully, but if others agree then this would be a mistake on the open exam </p>

371

<p>Can somebody put up a copy of the open exam(or ask their teacher to) since the open testing period is over??</p>

372

<p>@blueroses - The guide is rather evocative of “The Art and Craft of Problem Solving”, a standard book used by math olympiad preppers. It looks really well written, and I can see it being a staple of USABO Prep in the future. </p>

<p>@Audrae - Klinefelter’s is the presence of any extra x chromosomal material (bad pun intended) in males. <a href=“Klinefelter syndrome - Wikipedia”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klinefelter_syndrome&lt;/a&gt;. Thus anything that has a Y and more than one X is a Klinefelters’ case. I remember there being a choice that satisfied this. However, XXYY is considered by many to be a variation of Klinefelter’s, although I can definitely see how that’d be up to debate - <a href=“XXYY syndrome - Wikipedia”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XXYY&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>Oh I did not know that. Was that info in Campbell’s? I don’t remember reading it. </p>

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<p>Blueroses, that chapter is amazing and I would love to be able to put the information inside it to use. However, it just seems kind of defeating the purpose of the USABO if we all just use those tactics to get stuff right. Just my opinion, but whatever works works, right?</p>

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<p>Nice Blueroses :slight_smile: I would bet for most killer test takers and quizzers out there, these tactics are ingrained into their intuition. </p>

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<p>Also, @ Blueroses, due to previous stalking I discovered you could read Campbell’s in a few hours? How in the world? </p>

377

<p>@blueroses I would love to see you complete this book! I would definitely buy it! :)</p>

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<p>@Chess: I could read Campbell’s in a few hours because I’d read it 100+ times before. When I was in competitive form, “reading” eventually meant “leafing through while making sure I know stuff”. I’d struggle to read it that fast now, and certainly didn’t come close in the beginning. (I do read fast, but it would take me at least two evenings of focused work to plow through a comparable book I hadn’t read before, and an order of magnitude longer to be happy about facing a USABO-style test on said book.)</p>

<p>@botherme: You aren’t wrong about tactics being an unintended (and not especially desirable) side effect of how tests work. FWIW, I do try to minimize this sort of thing at USABO, and there’s more awareness at all levels…you’ll notice I picked on the early IBOs because the later ones are much less flagrant with the tactics-bait.</p>

<p>But it’s still there, and it’s a big part of how I think about tests. I started out wanting to make an annotated answer key for the available IBO tests…and I think it’s more useful to the reader if I can be honest about my thought process. I’m not going to sit there and tell you “of course the durmast oak is a mountain species, if you don’t know your European oaks then why don’t you go crying back to chem olympiad and/or your mama”. I’m going to say “I don’t know that species, but it probably lives in rocky soil based on the Latin name”.</p>

<p>I also suspect that tactics are an advantage for people like me - I went to a school where the gamesmanship of test-taking was treated as a given (normal, expected, discussed, even explicitly taught). That’s not the case everywhere. USABO gets bright kids who are still a bit mindblown that Campbell has an evolution unit…I doubt anyone’s taken these kids aside and helped them optimize their testing skills. They could use the help.</p>

379

<p>I appreciate the response, and I would definitely buy the book if you wrote out a full version!</p>

380

<p>usabo somtimes seems like a conspiracy…idk why but it does at times…</p>