I just did it. The last question was okay but some of it was just plain weird. A few of my friends just gave up half way through and doodled on the side of the questions paper for the rest of the time.
Anyone currently doing A levels - be them AS or A2s - can do it.
I agree. Wish I had done more past papers because I could have sworn I'd seen them before -- ah well. I can always do it again in Year 13. Will be lucky to get a gold to be honest.
Hmm, i've looked at the past papers and can do probable about 40-50% of the stuff.
I haven't done any A2 stuff, am on unit 2 of AS.
Sometimes they explain things to you in the exam (e.g. what NMR spectroscopy is or what a chiral centre is), but sometimes they don't. For example, requiring knowledge of what optical isomers are. Did they really claim the paper is accessible to Year 12s? Doesn't seem that way.
It's for year 12 and 13. Did it this afternoon. Opens paper, looks at the questions. My first response was Oh dear, Why didnt I put my lucky socks on?' Wasn't actually that bad, once you got started.
The chemistry one is harder in my opinion... really do not like drawing things! Explains why I hate geometry in BMO1.
One of the lads who sat the chem olympiad with me also does the maths olympiad and finds the maths one easier because 'with the maths one, you can work stuff out, with the chemistry one, you have to know stuff!'
Anyone currently doing A levels - be them AS or A2s - can do it.
All be it rather badly! there are concepts there that no one will have heard of, for example in the 2007 past paper, A level candidates would not know about the dueterium shift, required (in question 4 (i think...)) however its deductable by guess work..
One of the lads who sat the chem olympiad with me also does the maths olympiad and finds the maths one easier because 'with the maths one, you can work stuff out, with the chemistry one, you have to know stuff!'
I suppose... although with the maths one it can help to be able to dish out heavy mathematical formulae. This paper though!
I suppose... although with the maths one it can help to be able to dish out heavy mathematical formulae. This paper though!
True. There were three of us doing it. One was scribbling away right from the beginning whilst i was looking through the paper thinking ohdear :/ Maybe I should have put my lucky socks on. That really annoyed me, and the other guy was going 'Oh dear', EVERY TIME he turned the page. They'll probably have done better than I did, and they're Y12's!!
Did anyone else find it really odd that they want to know what we're hoping to study at uni?
Did anyone else find it really odd that they want to know what we're hoping to study at uni?
Wanting to study Chemistry, obviously! It makes sense I think, they'll want to know if they are losing the best students to other subjects.
Thought Q3 was a bit strange, really relied on you knowing specific things. Bit harsh if (like me!) you didn't have a clue! I quite liked Q5 actually, if only for that clever jump in the middle. :P
Is it marked by our teachers? If so I should know how I did by the end of the week! Our Chem teacher is a god at marking!
Wanting to study Chemistry, obviously! It makes sense I think, they'll want to know if they are losing the best students to other subjects.
Thought Q3 was a bit strange, really relied on you knowing specific things. Bit harsh if (like me!) you didn't have a clue! I quite liked Q5 actually, if only for that clever jump in the middle. :P
Is it marked by our teachers? If so I should know how I did by the end of the week! Our Chem teacher is a god at marking!
Same. Chemistry <3 Q3 was odd. two of the 'give the systematic names' questions i got. Only because we used one of them yesterday.