While attempts at humor have been made, what follows below represents actual mistakes made by previous EOU COMAP teams.

Don't Prepare

1. Everyone can do anything anyway, so no need to assign roles ahead of time.

2. You can spend seven or eight hours during the exam learning how to do 3D graphical representation of data, so no need to think about computers much before they exam.

Don't Worry

1. COMAP's a good chance to catch up on that James Bond Film Festival you've always wanted to see.

2. Geez, those guys on your team turned out to be idiots. Ignore them and do the project yourself.

3. Pick the problem that ''sounds cool,'' or don't pick a problem that one of your teammates is an expert on.

Write a Crummy Paper

1. Have large blocks of text.

2. Don't put in figures.

3. Have some misspellings, and (this is KEY) have sections called ``FOO''

4. Don't answer the exact problem asked.

Make Sure you have a Terrible Abstract (Most Important!)

1. Write the abstract at the last minute, having only 1 person in charge of it.

2. Don't proofread abstract.

3. Invent new terms like ``box strength of crushing.''.