Official USABO 2015

<p>@boomvoom4000‌ Thanks! Haha I’m probably not going to get into either but why not try</p>

<p>Just copying my post from the 2014 thread for you guys this year: </p>

<p>Personally, I don’t think you need much besides Campbell and Raven’s even at Finals level. Alberts is good, but reading it is like trying to kill a mosquito with a canon. Those two can get you to Finals for sure (I just used Campbell). Once you get to camp, just try to take in what they tell you and get enough sleep and you’ll be fine.</p>

<p>Also, I’d try to focus on developing strong reasoning skills by doing old tests. Go through problems, and for each one you don’t know, look up once piece of information at a time and see with how little help you can reason out the right answer This becomes increasingly important as you move up the levels of the competition. </p>

<p>@boomvoom4000‌ Great! I went in blank with AP Bio knowledge and took the 2012 exam and got 36. I think it’s a good start, but I definitely want to see you guys in camp :)!</p>

<p>@Newdle 36 is amazing! How do plan on preparing for the Open Exam?</p>

<p>@boomvoom4000‌ Campbell all the way! By the way, I went through AP Bio, so I think that definitely helped. I’m probably going to read much more, but I’m also self-studing chemistry so that I can skip my chemistry class and enroll in AP Chemistry at another school (it’s complicated). I’ll see if I can get my hands on Raven’s, though… Meh, I wonder if I honestly have enough time, haha!</p>

<p>Oh, wait… Is there a penalty for guessing? I assumed not when I tallied up my points.</p>

<p>There is never a penalty for guessing on any of the usabo tests</p>

<p>@wanahakalugi‌ Alright, thanks! Did you get my message, by the way?</p>

<p>yep, sorry, just forgot to respond. </p>

<p>@wanahakalugi‌ No problemo. Take your time, please :)</p>

<p>@alzhao‌ if you made the USAMO exam, then you can take that and also do USABO Finaals. But if you make MOSP (summer camp) and USABO Finals you would have to choose between them.</p>

<p>to anyone who has taken AP Bio this year, do you think knowing Campbell and practicing FRQs would be good to get a 5?</p>

<p>Does anybody know if we need to memorize the 20 amino acids? </p>

<p>@alzhao‌ No, you do not need to memorize them by heart, but you’re for sure going to have to know how translation works.</p>

<p>Does anyone have a copy of the 2014 open exam or the semifinal? I was stupid this year and forgot about the exam date so I lost a chance…</p>

<p>@alzhao‌, I’d actually recommend you do learn the amino acids. Be able to draw the R groups of each. There are online quizzes to help with this. However, if you don’t know every atom on each amino acid, you should be fine, as long as you know their properties, though I find that usually I can use the structures as a guide from which to remember the properties. </p>

<p>@purrples‌, nobody’s actually supposed to have access to this year’s tests. For prep purposes, you should be fine with reading and looking at what tests are easily found online. </p>

<p>Would you guys recommend memorizing the structures of the important organic compunds or is remembering their important properties enough?</p>

<p>@sevenelevenman I wouldn’t bothering memorizing the actual structures, though it would be good to know the general structures of most compounds/important parts. I would recommend knowing for example being the recognize amylopectin, glycogen, amylose, cellouse, as well as maybe famous lab chemicals such as beta-mercanthal, IPGT, and EDTA. You should also be able to recognize basic macromolecules. For example, you don’t really need to know the specific structure of ATP for example, but it would be a good idea to know that the 3 hydroxyl group is getting attacked by the phosphate in the 5 prime hydroxyl group in DNA polymerization. In a similar way, you probably wouldn’t need to know the specific structure of chitin but you would need to know that the monomers are not glucose. Another example would be the fact that the actual structure of the nucleotides would probably never be tested, but recognizing the molecules of nucletides/the interconversion between them would be helpful. In this years IBO, for example, you were expected to know the deamination of cystine gave you uracil. In addition, especially in the semis, randomness may happen and something completely unexpected may come up.</p>

<p>@asdfs15‌ Okay thanks! Also, correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure chitin is made up of B glucose monomers with nitrogen containing appendages</p>

<p>Yeah, thats right, though I would word as beta linked N-Acetylglucosamine monomers. Its somewhat incorrect to call them glucose monomers as the side group has been modified.</p>