Jason Bao
Well, hello to everyone who is currently reading this. My name is Jason Bao, and my team was the first in the
WSC challenge for the junior division, with myself getting the honourable Asimov scholar for the junior division.
Today, I can share a little bit regarding me and my team's success in the challenge.
One of the significant aspects of the challenge that I really want to emphasize is that it is not a correlation test!
If you only study to know the relationship between the word and the definition, or the author and the work, you
are definitely going to be disappointed! While there are some questions in the challenge that are just about
direct correlation, the majority of the question is going to test general knowledge surrounding these terms. One
of the best examples I can give is the "Which statement would this guy agree the most with" question." If you
only study the correlation between the terms and the definition, it isn't going to help you at all, you will certainly
need an in-depth understanding of the knowledge surrounding the topics. If you take something away from this
text, it's that you always need to study more than you believe! Even though I am the first in the challenge, I only
got 1575/3000, which is just barely just over half. The WSC curriculum requires your own self to research
topics, and trust me, there is always more information out there.
However, that doesn't mean that you shouldn't start with studying the correlation. In fact, with me and my team
(really only myself), we first started by studying the correlation between words and definitions. The absolute
best place to do these is the Quizlet, more specifically, our team found success with Joaquin Revello's Quizlet
as he had a comprehensive study list with every subject except a special area. In fact, Joaquin was so
generous that he even includes a different art area Quizlet that tests you both on your correlation skills and
knowledge skills. Of course, there are definitely more Quizlet out there for you to try, as our team found a
Special area Quizlet just by searching up "WSC 2020". So always try to gain information.
However, here comes a critical step that separates a team that goes into the top 5 and just an average team.
For an average team, after studying for the correlation, they are just finished and believe that they are ready for
the challenge. However, as I said above, they are totally not ready! At this point, after you and your team
members have successfully gained a surface level of understanding of the term, it's time to go deep. We
created a doc called "additional WSC information," and its purpose is to record extra information about the
terms of the curriculum. This is especially important for art,music,literature, and media, as there is a lot of
information that needs to be learned in order to get a thorough understanding of the pieces. This is not to say
that other areas are not important, they all require a heavy amount of general knowledge about the entire topic.
For us, our team again used Joaquin, but this time on Joaquinrevello.com (This is free promotion Joaquin!),
where there are pages of information, collected by Joaquin, and shared for free on the topics of each subject
area. Joaquin's site is especially useful, as it allowed our team to collect the general information necessary for
art, music, literature, and media to succeed in these areas. Unfortunately, we were unable to do any of the
other subjects, which explains I only got a 6/20 for history and an 8/20 for the Sciences. However, because we
made the additional document and studied hard, we were rewarded with first places, and that I think is totally
worth it.
Overall, here are some things you can take away from our success.
1. Always study, never stop studying. Study everyday, even if it's just a little bit
actually search the terms up
3. Its Ok to do correlation studying first, but always go further and gain more general knowledge
4. Make a doc! Share it with teammate, and fill it out with information about the curriculum
5. Be prepared to be challenged! Many questions will involve you connecting information for various areas
of the curriculum, so be prepared to be dumbfounded. However, if you know the curriculum inside out,
you should be able to know it.
WSC challenge for the junior division, with myself getting the honourable Asimov scholar for the junior division.
Today, I can share a little bit regarding me and my team's success in the challenge.
One of the significant aspects of the challenge that I really want to emphasize is that it is not a correlation test!
If you only study to know the relationship between the word and the definition, or the author and the work, you
are definitely going to be disappointed! While there are some questions in the challenge that are just about
direct correlation, the majority of the question is going to test general knowledge surrounding these terms. One
of the best examples I can give is the "Which statement would this guy agree the most with" question." If you
only study the correlation between the terms and the definition, it isn't going to help you at all, you will certainly
need an in-depth understanding of the knowledge surrounding the topics. If you take something away from this
text, it's that you always need to study more than you believe! Even though I am the first in the challenge, I only
got 1575/3000, which is just barely just over half. The WSC curriculum requires your own self to research
topics, and trust me, there is always more information out there.
However, that doesn't mean that you shouldn't start with studying the correlation. In fact, with me and my team
(really only myself), we first started by studying the correlation between words and definitions. The absolute
best place to do these is the Quizlet, more specifically, our team found success with Joaquin Revello's Quizlet
as he had a comprehensive study list with every subject except a special area. In fact, Joaquin was so
generous that he even includes a different art area Quizlet that tests you both on your correlation skills and
knowledge skills. Of course, there are definitely more Quizlet out there for you to try, as our team found a
Special area Quizlet just by searching up "WSC 2020". So always try to gain information.
However, here comes a critical step that separates a team that goes into the top 5 and just an average team.
For an average team, after studying for the correlation, they are just finished and believe that they are ready for
the challenge. However, as I said above, they are totally not ready! At this point, after you and your team
members have successfully gained a surface level of understanding of the term, it's time to go deep. We
created a doc called "additional WSC information," and its purpose is to record extra information about the
terms of the curriculum. This is especially important for art,music,literature, and media, as there is a lot of
information that needs to be learned in order to get a thorough understanding of the pieces. This is not to say
that other areas are not important, they all require a heavy amount of general knowledge about the entire topic.
For us, our team again used Joaquin, but this time on Joaquinrevello.com (This is free promotion Joaquin!),
where there are pages of information, collected by Joaquin, and shared for free on the topics of each subject
area. Joaquin's site is especially useful, as it allowed our team to collect the general information necessary for
art, music, literature, and media to succeed in these areas. Unfortunately, we were unable to do any of the
other subjects, which explains I only got a 6/20 for history and an 8/20 for the Sciences. However, because we
made the additional document and studied hard, we were rewarded with first places, and that I think is totally
worth it.
Overall, here are some things you can take away from our success.
1. Always study, never stop studying. Study everyday, even if it's just a little bit
- Yes I know that everyone tells you that but you don’t want to. But look at us! We did not even study that much, but we did study.
actually search the terms up
3. Its Ok to do correlation studying first, but always go further and gain more general knowledge
4. Make a doc! Share it with teammate, and fill it out with information about the curriculum
- On that note, don’t copy and paste everything you see, try to record down the information that you think the WSC team would think is relevant.
- Here is some things that I personally record
- For Art/Music/Media/Literature: The author’s ideology, what does he/she want and how does he/she express this through the art
- For history: Important moment within succession, and what makes that secession special
- For science: How is technology being used, what is the theory behind the technologies
- For Special area: Who is the cause of the mistake, what is the pivotal points within the mistakes
- For social: Understand big concepts
5. Be prepared to be challenged! Many questions will involve you connecting information for various areas
of the curriculum, so be prepared to be dumbfounded. However, if you know the curriculum inside out,
you should be able to know it.
- In the actual WSC challenge, if you truly don’t know a answer, just leave it blank, it can give you extra marks