Practise with the judge

The 9 questions judges ask

1. What made you want to ask this question?
2. What did you think would happen, and why?
3. What did you change, and what did you measure?
4. What did you keep the same, and why does that matter?
5. How many times did you test it?
6. What did you find out? Show me in your numbers.
7. Was your hypothesis right? How do you know?
8. Did anything go wrong, or surprise you?
9. If you did it again, what would you change or test next?

A judge usually has only a few minutes at each board, so they ask three or four of these and listen for one thing: do you know what you did and what your numbers say? The best answer to every one of them names your own project. "I kept the car and the floor the same" beats "I tried to keep it fair", and pointing at your table beats "it worked".

A science fair presentation in 60 seconds

Most judges start with "Tell me about your project". Have five lines ready: your question; what you changed and what you kept the same; what you found, with a number; what surprised you; and what you'd test next. That is about a minute out loud. "My 60-second talk" above builds the five lines from your own project and numbers, reads them to you, times you against a minute, and prints them on a card.

It's fine to say a test went wrong, or that your hypothesis was wrong. Judges like that, as long as you can say what the numbers showed and what you'd test next. Have your logbook with you; it remembers what you forget.

The questions are written in a child's words from the Alpine School District's judging procedures and Scientific American's five most common judge questions. Next: the fair-day checklist.