Cambridge Chemistry Challenge

Does anybody know when the crystal trophies and certificates are sent out?

Reply 2887

Original post by Protoxylic

Does anybody know when the crystal trophies and certificates are sent out?

Idk, but... sounds like you got a high score - what did you get? :wink:

Reply 2888

Original post by LeoMantys

Idk, but... sounds like you got a high score - what did you get? :wink:

Nah I didn't get as high as I wanted to, I did so many silly mistakes for example, the question where it asked for the length of a, I thought it said in terms of r, so I lost 2 there. Silly marks lost on equation balancing also, but overall I got 34 which I'm fine with, I was only aiming for gold, but it would be nice for the summer school although it was a harder than average paper.

Reply 2889

Original post by Protoxylic

Nah I didn't get as high as I wanted to, I did so many silly mistakes for example, the question where it asked for the length of a, I thought it said in terms of r, so I lost 2 there. Silly marks lost on equation balancing also, but overall I got 34 which I'm fine with, I was only aiming for gold, but it would be nice for the summer school although it was a harder than average paper.

Oo0Oo welldone! :biggrin:

... I did find it a bit more difficult than the other past papers, however, I feel that it's just the pressure in the examination room in which I was sweating like heck :/ ...I still don't know my score :/... I doubt that I got Rg level anyway ;P

Reply 2890

Original post by LeoMantys

Oo0Oo welldone! :biggrin:

... I did find it a bit more difficult than the other past papers, however, I feel that it's just the pressure in the examination room in which I was sweating like heck :/ ...I still don't know my score :/... I doubt that I got Rg level anyway ;P

You never know, the boundaries are released after the moderation of the papers, however, Rg will still be high because some centres undoubtedly cheat and hence a minority of the people who 'achieve' Rg push the boundary for Rg up to a stable set every year.

Reply 2891

Original post by Protoxylic

You never know, the boundaries are released after the moderation of the papers, however, Rg will still be high because some centres undoubtedly cheat and hence a minority of the people who 'achieve' Rg push the boundary for Rg up to a stable set every year.

True :/ but as from watching Dragon Ball Z (woop!) I learnt that in the world there will always be someone better then me, however, these papers made me realise how much I've still got to learn chemistry and so this experience just pumped up my motivation to learn more over summer (ah summer every day is a perfect day for some chemistry.) Anyway I don't mind if I get into a summer school cause I'm going to one to Cambridge anyway, for a week, to do stuff like HOMO and LUMO molecular orbitals and stuff (which I covered this in 'Why chemical reactions happen'). However I have to pay like £250 for this trip and I wander if getting the Rg level is the same trip but for free... if not then I don't mind an extra week at Cambridge doing chemistry <333 (I doubt it tho)
P.S. I still have life :smile:

(I think xD)

(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 2892

Original post by LeoMantys

True :/ but as from watching Dragon Ball Z (woop!) I learnt that in the world there will always be someone better then me, however, these papers made me realise how much I've still got to learn chemistry and so this experience just pumped up my motivation to learn more over summer (ah summer every day is a perfect day for some chemistry.) Anyway I don't mid if I get into a summer school cause I'm going to one to Cambridge anyway, for a week, to do stuff like HOMO and LUMO molecular orbitals and stuff (which I covered by myself through 'Why chemical reactions happen'). ?However I have to pay like £250 for this and I wander if winning the Rg level is the same trip but for free... if not then I don't mind an extra week at Cambridge doing chemistry <333
P.S. I still have life :smile:

(I think xD)

Yeah summer is going to be a great time to get a head start on chemistry outside the syllabus, for me I'm more leaned towards physical and organic chemistry, not too much of a fan of inorganic, so I'm currently reading about aldol chemistry and carbohydrates as well as the maths behind NMR.

Reply 2893

Original post by Protoxylic

Yeah summer is going to be a great time to get a head start on chemistry outside the syllabus, for me I'm more leaned towards physical and organic chemistry, not too much of a fan of inorganic, so I'm currently reading about aldol chemistry and carbohydrates as well as the maths behind NMR.

I agree!!

(just because I'm going on a chemistry trip that covers mostly inorganic chemistry - I didn't have a choice and I don't mind either - doesn't mean I'm not into other parts of chemistry :P) I'll be doing an EPQ on geometrics of molecules such as the importance and origin of chirality (like why there are left handed amino acids and dextrose sugars on Earth) and a Science Research Qualification (Similar to EPQ) on either Xray crystallography (<3333) (recently some Japanese chemist was able to snapshot parts of reaction mechanism with a catalyst using Xray crystallography) or on Joseph Loschmidt. I'm about to read a lot of OCPs and other articles and books ^_^. Organic Chemistry is my fav tho

Reply 2894

Look how accurate the structures of organic compounds are in http://www.ch.ic.ac.uk/rzepa/loschmidt/ considering this was over 150 years ago (and there is some suspicion that Kekule got the idea of the structure of benzene from him rather than him having a dream of a snake eating its own tail)

Reply 2895

Original post by LeoMantys

Look how accurate the structures of organic compounds are in http://www.ch.ic.ac.uk/rzepa/loschmidt/ considering this was over 150 years ago (and there is some suspicion that Kekule got the idea of the structure of benzene from him rather than him having a dream of a snake eating its own tail)

Is the 'why reactions happen' book a good book to pick up? Currently I'm getting my literature from the oxford textbooks and the primers series.

Reply 2896

It is a very very good book! :smile:

However, as I have read that book first, the content was very confusing until the point I was reading about inorganic and organic chemistry Primer books such as Chemical Bonding Primer (excellent read) which has some more detail and practise into some of the principles that you need to grasp before you read the why chemical reactions happen book. So I would advise you to read OCPs first, briefly, and then read the why chemical reactions happen book. It's got some thermodynamics in it too but you can easily understand it straight from the text (well in my case anyway). I'm about to reread it again ^_^ (last time I read it was last summer xD) and do you, by any chance, read or saw the contents of "Principles of Chemistry" by Michael Munowitz, and "General Chemistry" by Linus Pauling? They are next on my shopping list xD.

Reply 2897

Oooh I also advise to look at "Organic Chemistry I as a Second Language" and "Organic Chemistry II as a Second Language" which are really good at grasping concepts of resonance, NMR (and other analytical techniques) to do with organic chemistry (lots and lots of practise included with solutions).

Reply 2898