Astronomy -Science Olympiad NYS Competition March 9th, 2013

Astronomy
On the day of the contest, we studied the textbook very quickly- it’s good to look at the chapter
summaries at the end because they have all the important facts. Main tip- one person should
bring a binder and the other person should bring a laptop. The people at the contest do not let you
charge your laptop. My laptop and my partner’s laptop died out so that was bad. The contest was
around 50 questions and they were all paragraphs. Many of them were equations so study the
equations. A few questions were on basic theories. They give you 50 minutes, which seems
enough to me. We split the test in half and helped each other out in the hard questions.
Tip= Make one person study the theories and the other person study the equations. It helps to
organize the studying better.

Regionals

1) Test was split into five sections; multiple choice, Light curvatures, vocabulary, picture
matching, and an essay.
a) The multiple choice questions involved a lot equation questions, stellar evolution,
and H-R diagram.
b) The equation questions tested the knowledge on parsecs, absolute magnitude,
apparent magnitude, red shift, luminosity, and solar mass. One should probably
study these equations in detail and not use them as a reference sheet during the
actual test. This became a major problem during states, as we had to flip back to the
equation document multiple times.
c) Many stellar evolution questions went hand in hand with the H-R diagram questions.
An example of a common stellar evolution question would be; “A healthy giant star
is about 7.5 solar masses. What is most likely the fate of this star?” Another example
being, “Sirius B is a white dwarf in a binary system with Sirius A. Sirius A is most likely
a ____”. Although this is a multiple choice test, guessing is not advisable as each
question has around 5-8 multiple choices. The most common documents I used in
this section was the equation document and a modified H-R diagram document.
2) The light curve section of the test was probably the most difficult part of the test, simply
because we did not prepare very well for this section.
a) This section had no multiple choices at all and was all calculation based. Most of the
questions were accompanied with a graph of a light curve. The questions asked to
 find magnitudes, luminosity, and masses. Knowledge of the equations was
important for this section.
Example of a light curve:

3) The vocabulary section was rather simple. The questions were definitions and you had
to match them to their appropriate word.
4) The picture section was also rather simple. Each question provided you with a
description of a specific super nova, black hole, star, neutron star, or variable star and
you had to name the described object. In addition, there was a set of pictures. You also
had to match the picture to the description.
5) The essay question was simply a fluke, and I doubt it will show up ever again any time
soon. The question gave a lyric from a song and asked you to explain the validity of the
song lyric. If I were to retake this test, I would simply skip this section, as it was too long
and it only gave a maximum of three points.

States

1) States was a lot less general and left the boundaries that regionals had set. While
regionals specifically focused on stellar evolution and the fundamentals of
astronomy, States required a greater knowledge of astronomy, chemistry, and
physics.
2) Some questions were simple and asked specifics of stars and nebulas, such as
Betelgeuse and the Crab Nebula, respectively. However, the questions at times got
extremely detailed. One question asked “Would the region around Betelgeuse be
able to support life.” While another asked for the chemical formulas for the nuclear
fission and fusion that occurs in a star.
3) THERE WAS NO MULTIPLE CHOICE ON THIS TEST
4) Some questions required knowledge of current events in astronomy, such as cosmic
background radiation and the Higgs field.
5) The entire test was not just math. A lot asked for definitions and detailed
descriptions.