| Crayfish takes them to 5th spot in Bio
Olympiad
By Lee
Sze Yong
THEY were delighted to see crayfish on their
tables.
After all, the four 18-year-old students who represented
Singapore in the 14th International Biology Olympiad (IBO) had
learnt much about crustaceans, thanks to Hwa Chong Junior College
(JC) student Tan Haihan.
The reserve team member had shared his knowledge about shelled
marine life in one of the team's training sessions.
Said Shirleen Soh, the only girl in the team: ''When we saw the
crayfish, we immediately thought of Haihan.
'Removing the appendages and naming the different parts became
easy for us. I think all of us scored full marks for the
section.'
That helped Singapore clinch the fifth spot among 41 countries in
the IBO.
Victoria JC student Shirleen won one of the 17 gold medals in the
competition. Her three team-mates won a silver each.
Haihan, a marine-life lover, was delighted. He said: 'Although I
did not take part in the competition, I still feel very, very proud
of my team members.'
But Singapore has done even better before, taking the fourth
place last year after coming in third in 2001 when it first took
part in the competition.
The Russian Federation, China and Taiwan were the joint champions
this year.
Held in July at Minsk, Belarus, the competition saw 163 college
students showing off their knowledge and skills in
biology.
Each participant had to complete a 4 1/4-hour multiple-choice
test, as well as four one-hour laboratory sessions.
The Singaporeans credited their win to the 30 staff members from
the National Institute of Education (NIE) and the National
University of Singapore.
Associate Professor Shirley Lim from NIE, who led the team,
revealed the trainers' strategy: Topic spotting.
The president of Singapore Institute of Biology explained:
'Biology is a very broad subject.
'So, besides holding training sessions for the students twice a
week, we (the trainers) also analysed the subjects the host
university was strong in, and spotted the topics that were most
likely to come out.'
Anglo-Chinese Junior College student Chew Guo-Liang summed up the
team's secret of success best.
He said: 'It was a lot of team work and hard work.' | 
