STATE

DA VINCI DECATHLON 2021

CELEBRATING THE ACADEMIC GIFTS OF STUDENTS
IN YEARS 9, 10 & 11

SCIENCE
TEAM NUMBER _____________

1 2 3 4 Total Rank

/15 /15 /28 /14 /72

 Prepared by Dylan Sherman, Oxford University, 2020

QUESTION 1: CHEATING CHANCE (15 MARKS)

This first question looks at various errors in interpreting results from scientific investigations.
The errors arose because scientists didn’t correctly leave things ‘to chance’. Instead, they
added a bias to their logic, which meant the results from an experiment were no longer
naturally occurring.

(a) Scientists reported a theory many years ago that ‘cats who fell from higher stories have
fewer injuries than cats who fell from lower down’. It sounds strange but was justified
using terminal velocity by suggesting cats falling from higher than six stories reach their
maximum velocity during the fall, so they start to relax and prepare to land, resulting in
less injury. They collected data from various vets who recorded cats that were brought
to their veterinary clinic after a fall. Theorise as to why this experimental method might
have been fundamentally flawed, resulting in inaccurate results. (2 marks)

(b) In World War II, planes would return from flights with many bullet holes. Below is an
image representing an average of the bullet hole locations, with each red dot illustrating
a bullet hole. A team of engineers hoped to improve the resilience of the plane by
installing extra shielding where it is most needed. Using similar reasoning to part (a),
explain where the extra shielding would be best placed to better protect the plane.
Annotate the diagram to indicate these locations. (3 marks)

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 Prepared by Dylan Sherman, Oxford University, 2020

(c) One of the most common biases in experimentation is confirmation bias. It arises when
scientists interpret new evidence as confirmation of their existing beliefs or theories.
Below are 4 cards used in an experiment. The participant in the experiment is asked:
“which 2 cards should you turn over to test the claim that if a card has an even number
on one face, then its opposite face is red?”. Two possible selections are shown below
using blue and orange arrows. Explain which of the two selections would be the most
correct answer and which selection is the result of confirmation bias. (4 marks)

(d) The table below includes descriptions of four experiments, each with a different type of
bias affecting the chances of collecting ‘natural’ data. Your task is to (1) describe the
bias that is occurring in each example and (2) suggest an improvement to the
experiment that would overcome the bias. (6 marks)

EXAMPLE DESCRIPTION OF BIAS IMPROVEMENT

An experiment aims to test
how precisely high school
students can estimate
Australia’s population. The
survey each student received
had 2 questions in this order:
1. Is Australia’s
population more than
30 million?
2. What is Australia’s
current population?

Australia’s population is 25.5

million but the average
answer for question 2 was
significantly greater,
demonstrating the students
were imprecise at estimating
the population.

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 Prepared by Dylan Sherman, Oxford University, 2020

A shoe company wants to

maximise sales of their next
product so release a survey:
‘what new product would
you pay for?’. The survey
was sent to the people who
signed up the company’s
subscription email list.

A holiday program wanted

to test the students’
satisfaction of its classes.
One class provided
feedback forms during the
last class while a second
class provided the feedback
form a week after the last
class. The results, shown
below, show that class two
was clearly more preferred.
Class 1 – 78% satisfaction
Class 2 – 91% satisfaction

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 Prepared by Dylan Sherman, Oxford University, 2020

QUESTION 2 – STORIES OF SERENDIPITY (15 MARKS)

Many recognisable science developments have occurred by chance rather

than purposeful experimentation. Microwave radiation, for example, was
discovered after chocolate melted in a researcher’s pocket. One of the
greatest serendipitous discoveries is the alleged apple that fell on
Newton’s head.

(a) Consider the essential navigation tool: a compass. Imagine you discovered the compass
by chance on one recent day after observing a few interesting phenomena. Your task is
to describe the observations that you made to make this discovery and explain how
these observations demonstrated the theories/scientific phenomena that explain how a
compass functions. The quality of creative writing will not be assessed, rather the focus
is on demonstrating an understanding of scientific principles. (3 marks)

(b) Most chance discovery in science resulted from observing nature. Below are various
snapshots from nature. Your task is to match the list of technologies below to the correct
natural source of inspiration and briefly explain what idea was borrowed from nature in
each example. Note: the list contains more technologies than needed and there is no
repetition of technologies in the table. (12 marks)

Kevlar, Space robots for external repairs on the ISS, Speedo swimsuits, Wind
turbines, Bullet trains, Velcro, Multi-chimney cooling system, blu-tack.

NATURAL INSPIRATION TECHNOLOGY EXPLANATION

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Prepared by Dylan Sherman, Oxford University, 2020

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 Prepared by Dylan Sherman, Oxford University, 2020

QUESTION 3 – DRYING DILEMMA (28 MARKS)

Drying clothes, for many, often seems to be a game of

chance. At times, in a heated house, clothes can take days to
dry, while outside they take only hours even on cooler days.
The science behind drying clothes, however, is quite simple.
Firstly, the liquid water needs to be converted by energy to
vapour. Secondly, an air stream is needed to remove the
vapour. This question will examine this process more closely
followed by considering an experiment that tries to determine
the optimal conditions to achieve the fastest drying process.

(a) Temperature can be defined as the average energy of molecular motion. Within a shirt,
for example, that is at a temperature of 15 °C there will be a number of different
molecules of different energy, but the average of these will produce the temperature of
15 °C. At one particular temperature, we can map the percentage (fraction) of molecules
at each energy level (energy band) as shown below. Explain why in the sketch below the
red curve represents the shirt at 20 °C while the blue line represents the shirt at 15 °C. (3
marks)

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 Prepared by Dylan Sherman, Oxford University, 2020

(b) Molecules with a high enough energy, indicated in our sketch above as the percentage
of molecules in the ‘escape energy’ shaded area, have enough energy to escape from
the liquid water surface. Identify two forces that require a high energy for the molecule to
break in order to escape the liquid water surface. (2 marks)

(c) Once molecules escape, the remaining molecules re-distribute their energy and
consequently reach a lower temperature, indicated by the blue curve in the sketch
above. By considering the liquid phase molecular model, explain how molecules can ‘re-
distribute their energy’. (2 marks)

(d) On the sketch in (a) the lower temperature distribution (blue line) has a far lower
proportion of high energy molecules in the escape energy area than the red line. Predict
what this means for the rate of evaporation. (1 mark)

(e) In the drying of clothes, the process in (b) to (d) repeats indefinitely, causing the shirts’
temperature to vary until an equilibrium is reached. Explain what allows the process to
repeat and predict what causes the process to reach an equilibrium. Will the equilibrium
temperature be equal to, higher or lower than the ambient temperature surrounding the
clothes (which are pegged to a non-conductive drying stand)? (4 marks)

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 Prepared by Dylan Sherman, Oxford University, 2020

(f) An experiment was designed to test whether heat, air or both are ideal for drying clothes.
A description of the setup is below, using a cotton cloth to represent a piece of clothing.
All clothing has a constant moisture content even when dry, about 9% for cotton. If this
internally bound water is lost then cotton fibres will shrink and if misaligned during the
process, the cloth will be permanently warped or shrunk. Ideal drying, therefore, is
limited to drying the clothes without removing the ‘dry’ moisture content.

A wet cotton cloth is placed on a metal surface designed to spread the heat flow from the
underlying, smaller, laboratory hotplate. The weighed portion of cloth is surrounded by a
guard ring of cotton cloth which is also soaked at the beginning of each experimental
run. The surface temperature of the cloth is measured by a fine thermocouple woven into
the cloth. The heat flow from the hot plate is adjusted manually to hold the temperature
exactly at ambient.

Complete the table below outlining key characteristics of the experiment. (6 marks)

AIM

HYPOTHESIS

INDEPENDENT
VARIABLE

DEPENDENT
VARIABLE

4 CONTROLLED
VARIABLES

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 Prepared by Dylan Sherman, Oxford University, 2020

(g) The results of the experiment are shown below. Each black trend line resembles a
different test – one with only heat (to ambient temperature, 20 °C), another with only air
flow and a final test with heat (to ambient temperature) and air flow. The data indicates
over time the weight excess of the cloth (where 0% is the original unwetted cloth). The
red trend line indicates the surface temperature of the cloth over time.

(i) Rank the three tests in terms of drying rate (slowest to fastest). Theorise the
reason for these results using the principles developed throughout this question (4
marks)

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 Prepared by Dylan Sherman, Oxford University, 2020

(ii) The air flow only test exhibits a near constant rate of loss until around 70 minutes
when there is a significant reduction until 80 minutes. This is unusual given that from
70-80 minutes temperature has increased almost 4 °C. Predict what is occurring at
each stage to produce (i) the constant rate and then (ii) the reduced rate after 70
minutes. (3 marks)

(iii) The heat and air flow combined test exhibits a similar plateau from around 26
minutes, but in this case the temperature does not rise. Why might this be a concern
and what test could be conducted to measure this concern? (3 marks)

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 Prepared by Dylan Sherman, Oxford University, 2020

QUESTION 4 – THE MEANING OF LIFE – 42? (14 MARKS)

If you’ve seen Jurassic Park then you might recall Dr Ian
Malcolm forewarning: “Your scientists were so preoccupied
with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if
they should.” This section will ask you to consider this
question in relation to a rapidly developing field of science
that is removing chance from our lifespans: life-expectancy
prediction and anti-ageing technologies.

Household DNA testing kits are now readily available, allowing users to determine their
chances of developing certain illnesses or the likelihood that a particular treatment will be
effective for them. More recent research by scientists attempts to go one step further and
predict your life expectancy.

Using deep learning, artificial intelligence and predictive analytics, data scientists have been
able to accurately calculate an individual’s lifespan using a sophisticated system that
considers a breadth of environmental, geographic, genetic and lifestyle factors.

Below is a recent article considering such technology that could remove an element of
chance from the question of how long one could live. Using the information below, and
your own ideas, your task is to consider the implications of such life altering science
to reach an evaluation as to whether it should be permitted as a technology for
society. To reach your conclusion, complete the short-answer responses below the article.

Much like existing tools that predict cancer survival rates, in the coming years we may see apps attempting to
analyse data to predict life expectancy. However, they will not be able to provide a “death date”, or even a year
of death.

Human behaviour and activities are so unpredictable, it’s almost impossible to measure, classify and predict
lifespan. A personal life expectancy, even a carefully calculated one, would only provide a “natural life
expectancy” based on generic data optimised with personal data. The key to accuracy would be the quality and
quantity of data available. Much of this would be taken directly from the user, including gender, age, weight,
height and ethnicity.

Access to real-time sensor data through fitness trackers and smart watches could also monitor activity levels,
heart rate and blood pressure. This could then be coupled with lifestyle information such as occupation,
socioeconomic status, exercise, diet and family medical history. All of the above could be used to classify an
individual into a generic group to calculate life expectancy. This result would then be refined over time through
the analysis of personal data, updating a user’s life expectancy and letting them monitor it.

This figure shows how an individual’s life expectancy might change between two points in time (F and H)
following a lifestyle improvement, such as weight loss.

https://theconversation.com/dont-die-wondering-apps-may-soon-be-able-to-predict-your-life-expectancy-but-do-you-want-to-know-129068 (CC)

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 Prepared by Dylan Sherman, Oxford University, 2020

(a) Explain five benefits that arise from life-expectancy prediction. Each benefit must affect a
different area (e.g. health, business, insurance, government, economics) and be explained
(i.e. identify the feature of prediction that is beneficial and then justify why it is beneficial
with reference to an area). (5 marks)

(b) Identify five risks associated with using such technology. (5 marks)

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 Prepared by Dylan Sherman, Oxford University, 2020

(c) By balancing the risks and benefits, along with considering which groups (e.g. individuals,
government, business) would be most affected, evaluate how life-expectancy predictions
should be used, if at all, in the future. If you believe it should be used in some way, explain
whether this is unrestricted use or what possible limits you would apply. (4 marks)

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