2016 United States Geography Olympiad Test Discussion.

[TylerV]

Although I did not personally work on the USGO Tests, I understand that the people that wrote them worked extremely hard. Please share any feedback here.

[Cassian]

I would like to add that I put together the vast majority of the USGO written test, with help from Raynell Cooper and Dave Madden. The test was edited with input from all three of us, and then I compiled the final product. I adapted a few questions from past iGeo written exams and published AP Human Geography free response sections, but most of the questions were written specifically for this exam by me, Dave and Raynell. We tried to make the exam challenging, fair, and appropriate to the types of tasks students will experience on the iGeo written test.

We would appreciate any feedback on the written exam (and of course on the MC exam). As a teacher, I am a firm believer in revising my curriculum based on student feedback, and I feel exactly the same about the process of conducting the USGO competition. We are already planning to change the distribution of the questions on the written exam next year to include more physical geography and interdisciplinary questions (and thus fewer human geography questions). We will also be talking to the US team members after the competition in August to get specific feedback from them about this and other aspects of the competition.