USABO 2018-2019

How did you guys feel about the semifinal exam?

I’m thinking about doing it next year and I don’t know where to start. I know some basic biology and I’ve heard that reading the Campbell Biology textbook is a good start but I thought I might want to do Khan Academy bio first. What do you guys think I should begin with (and when should I start studying)?

The semifinal was very different this year… It would be great if we could start a discussion maybe after 3/29.

Anyone else in the opinion that this was by far the most difficult semis ever given?

This one was pretty hard…I have a question: do the multiple response questions have partial credit?
By the way…I think I lost like 25 points because I could not finish the Open-Ended…If I got around a 90.0 would that be enough for top 100 or something?
Thanks!

I thought this years test was around 250 points total so probably not

Yeah for anyone who took 2018 semis, was this year’s significantly harder? That might lower the cutoff. And did they have the distracter questions in 2018, or was it something new this year? Also how did you guys fell about timing? There was so much reading and analysis

It should be like 230 points…there were 63 1-point questions (part A), 60 2-point questions (part b), 10 statement true/false questions which were 1 point each, and I did not finish the open ended, but the first one was 14 points and the other one was probably like 20.
As a result, 1(63)+2(60)+1(10)+(14+20) = 227 points. Usually it is around like 210 to 220 points, so there is not much of a difference from other years in terms of total possible score.

@iamaccuser1 Were you a semifinalist last year?

I was able to finish Part C and I thought timing was easier than previous tests. I should’ve spent more time analyzing each question on Part A and Part B more carefully, because I kind of rushed them due to thinking I wouldn’t have enough time. Part C was a lot shorter than last year.

Part C was around 35 + 14 + 14

I thought it was 38 + 14?

There were three part C problems weren’t there?

I was not a semifinalist last year. This is my first time taking the test.

What do you guys think about emailing CEE about releasing a list of Top 50 and Top 100 scores? I know that USAPHO has a gold, silver, bronze, and honorable mention for people who take the national exam and chemistry has top 150 and 50. It seems time that USABO should do that too, because it would be hard to write on your college app that you were top 50 based on the histogram if they didn’t release an official list. And based on the style of the semifinal test, it seems like organization is much better this year (I think there’s a new director) so maybe they would be willing to do it.

The Semifinal release date has been postponed to April 24th…

I believe that the Top 50 do receive emails now and have for the past few years. Granted, the list is not public.

Semifinal release date has been the 24th but they just updated it from the 10th on the actual calendar. If you checked the home page it’s been the 24th for a while.

I’m not sure if we can discuss so I’ll be vague but am I the only one that had no clue on the second part C question.

If it was about reading then yes I agree. What did you put?

@wolfkomodo That’s true, but I think it would be better if they released it publicly. Not sure why they don’t, as it doesn’t seem to hard to put everybody’s name on a doc and publish it right?

Please tell me if you disagree, but:

I think the total points is around 230 this year. The timing was definitely difficult, I was able to finish most but the latter half of Part C was a struggle (I had like 2 minutes to finish like 3 short answer questions).

Anyways, considering how the cutoff for last year was 93.5 out of a total of 160 points (roughly 58.4%), this year is probably going to be around that, maybe a little lower because Part 2 was pretty hard. I would say out of 230, the cutoff would probably be around 126~132 (54.8% - 57.4%).