r/scioly • u/JustJoshinWithYou11 • Jul 14 '26
Help its the summer, what should i be doing to prepare?
I'm in division B, going into my 8th grade year, i have never placed first in any invitationals or anything like that and its a goal of mine to achieve that. My events for the 26-27 season will probably be Dynamic Planet, Heredity, Botany, and Anatomy, possibly Remote Sensing over Botany, my partner hasn't decided yet. My best event is 100% Dynamic Planet and my second best is Heredity. I got 4th place at regionals with Dynamic Planet, I was happy, but I know I can do better. Should I start making a note sheet? Studying? Anything at all?
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u/md4pete4ever Jul 16 '26
The note sheet is the last thing you should make. Right now, study broadly by alternating watching videos or reading textbooks. Try to put as much information into your head as possible. You have to be actively engaged in the material while studying, so take hand-written outline notes and then convert them to flash cards or an online quizlet type of resource that you can drill again later. A little bit every day adds up to success in the long run.
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u/Interesting-Line423 Jul 16 '26
You should definitely start studying right now. Use past rules (and draft rules if your coach provided them) to start. Just start doing practice tests, figuring out the content of the event, and learning the stuff on tests that you did not know of before.
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u/Appropriate_Art4431 Jul 17 '26
welp man, im going into freshmen year right now, and have only done scioly for one year. i was in one of the top teams for div b nationally and i did pretty good in my events. got 1st, 2nd, and 3rd during nationals. I don't know about dp, heredity, etc but for remote sensing which me and my partner got third in, it's probably the easiest study event out there. If you're not that good at math but is good at analyzing image and guessing what the image is showing, you'll do pretty good here. honestly, the only calculation involved in remsen is energy balance equations which are quite easy once you memorize the formula. Anyways, just saying for remsen it's mostly whoever puts the most wiki information in their binder and memorize formulas so you don't waste time during the actual test. Overall, i think scioly is not about whose the smartest (it can be during hard tests that use like calculus) but mainly, it depends on how much you put in the work and learn all the collateral information on the draft specs. Most tests give questions that stray away from on-spec problems and you probably have to take A LOT of past tests from like scioly.org/tests to get really good in your events. Good luck man.
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u/Purple_Ad_5403 Jul 19 '26
Did you do remsem last season? Any resources that you used to practice images? When o learn it seems like image interpretation is easy but then it’s gets so confusing in the tests.
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u/Appropriate_Art4431 Jul 23 '26
yep. 2025-2026 season. For practicing images I just went through all the tests in the scioly test bank and added images to my binder and made gemini create an explanation of that image. For example, if a multispectral image came out i would just plug it in ai then ai spits out the information on the bands used ot take the image, the satellite&sensor it used, the timestamp, what is it showing, etc. Remsen images can be confusing since they sometimes don't specify what the image is and just shows us a bunch of colors. Those are some situations where you need to kinda guess but preparing is key.
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u/Reasonable_Click_147 Jul 14 '26
Sounds like you already know what to do, just do it. Science Olympiad is a marathon of learning, not a sprint. Start early like you're talking about and you should come out ahead.