Biology Forums - Study Force

Hey there, who's open to discussing some details on these topics in order for us all to help each other out with getting a better idea and understanding of them? Please do feel free to join the conversation. Any questions/interesting facts/ideas or anything u'd like to share would be more than welcome! If you want to you can even tell us more about yourself, how you feel about biology and what brings you here (: I personally am a highschool student who loves biology and competes in biology competitions every year. I guess I've had some recognizable results, but I'm hoping to exceed those and achieve some even more remarkable results, hopefully even win, since it's my last year of highschool aka my last chance to do so. I'll do my best but what I really wish is I had someone to just discuss these topics with, someone who loves or is interested in biology just as much as me. And I haven't exactly come across such a person yet, lmaoo

What do you do in biology competitions?

Well, it used to be a lot more interesting with all the practical stuff, but they've made some not quite positive changes, so there's none of those anymore. Basically, it's mostly theory now which is kinda sad. But it's still somewhat hard coz they go into tiniest damn details and stuff. There's also gonna be genetics problems, which I'm really looking forward to

So that's all they do in a competition, they expect you to remember all the micro details, and the person with superior memory wins? Is there any thinking involved, problem solving?

Yes, yes. Of course. Questions are tricky and take not only being familiar with all the details but also knowing how to apply them. There's problems and such stuff, a lot of those. It's just that it's only the written exam now without the practical part (which involved interesting stuff such as dissections, isolating plant pigments, DNA molecules, insects determination with the help of a determination key, some experiments  and similar things). There even used to be the part where students could present their own researches to the judges. But they had to ruin it, lmao. Anyway, even without those, it's still not just learning by heart, if that's what u were wondering, hahah

I've always been an overachiever, though never have I delved into academic competitions. I'm surprised we haven't been approached by institutions that create these competitions to endorse on our community. If you click the "textbooks" (https://biology-forums.com/index.php?action=textbook) link above, we literally have student/instructor resources to countless biology textbooks, and it's all free.

If I were competing, I'd literally treat it like I'm a contestant on Jeopardy; essentially I'd read through every question and try to familiarize myself with the terminology. Once you understand that all molecules ending in "-ase" are enzymes, those ending with "-ose" are sugars, etc., it starts to become a little "easier".

Let us know if there's a competition you're planning on competing in, maybe we can help ya prepare

Damn, I see. It's a shame that they don't. But I'm not really surprised that our institusion doesn't approach you in any way, since they're not very enterprising in general. Particularly, the competition I'll participate in is official and organized by the Ministry of Education. Anyway, the textbooks part could be very helpful, I'll check them out. And thanks for willing to help! I'll keep that in mind