Biology olympiad.
Was really really really difficult.
There was seriously no time for the biochemistry part.
Had no idea what a curvette was.
Like the curvette wasn't even curvy.
And how are you supposed to complete BOTH parts in 1 hour?
Crazy.
But the vortex was really cool and fun.
Screwed up the plant cutting.
Had seriously no time to do the smear.
And the flies were a bit crazy.
So was the genetics.
Lunch was really nice.
Best provided meal ever.
This year.
Since provided meals in Scouts is incomparable.
The beans were super easy.
The crabs were super difficult.
But at least you could spout something.
Just from observations.
Unlike the other pracs.
But I'm seriously not sure whether crustacean B has only 6 legs or did someone before me tore out the last 2 legs.
Because I see 4 legs attached.
2 legs floating around.
And I see what appears to be leg stumps.
But I wasn't really sure...
Next was prawn dissection.
Had to remove appendages from the prawns.
Starting from the appendage directly behind the eye.
Just remove and remove and remove.
And there was supposed to be 19 appendages.
So I took out all there was.
Only 18...
Cut out the eye and put it on the board.
...
...
...
No, that's not right.
Cut out the part beneath the eye, since it sticks out just slightly...
Hmmm...
That could be it...
And the rest of the questions were uber hard.
During the debrief, the lecturer said something like you all should remember the parts.
And begun to recite them with some of the students.
And we're like huh?
Later on saw 2 people with notes.
Each one from different schools.
Eh?
They look like the same notes!
And they showed all the parts of the prawn!
But then I look at the coordinators and realised that some are one year our senior.
Realisation dawned upon me.
Those who were selected for the Singapore team would of course teach their juniors.
So they would be more prepared for it.
Then it made so much more sense now.
At first it seemed that it was purposely really hard and a little bit random in the sense of how much extra stuff you know.
And I was like surely everyone would be getting single digit marks right?
So difficult.
Then now I realised that with the preparation, the test was actually doable.
The test wasn't made for everyone...
...
We just need one person to get in.
Then that person can teach the next batch.
And surely they would be more prepared from then on...
For the theory test, you just need to study that textbook.
But for the practical test, you would really require preparation that you can never get from textbooks and websites...
Oh well...
