Chemistry Olympiad 2021

Original post by ira.m

organic chemistry and calculations for sure :smile:

Does much Inorganic Chem come up as well? If so, could you recommend any books for studying it

Reply 3

coolchem

15

Have you gone through the whole A2 syllabus? Don't enter for it unless you've at least gone through the first year of A-level content

Reply 4

AThow

6

Hi, I'm in year 13 now and represented the UK last year in the IChO. I really think the topics you should look out for are different from person to person. The best way to revise is to go through all the available past papers and check through them carefully with the mark scheme. Look out for any types of questions you don't do so well on and go over the A-level syllabus for that topic. Round 1 DOES NOT require any knowledge beyond A-level but if you know the course well it really helps. What makes it difficult is the style of question being very different to A-level. If you get used to this and do lots of practice you will do as well as you can. Any award would be impressive in year 11. Good luck!

Reply 5

cactussalad

15

don't worry too much if you don't know what something means - have a look at the equations booklet and see if you can work something out from there

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Original post by coolchem

Thank you for the advice! I know a few people who've taken part in the Icho, but none from the UK (even though im from the UK).

Also, may I ask, how long did it take in terms of preparation to get to this stage? I've covered all the AS + A2 sylllabus and im in year 12. Do I have a realistic shot once I'm in year 13 would you say?

How have you done all of AS and A2 in year 12? Wow

Reply 8

coolio1910

4

Original post by cloggedclarked

Hi, I'm currently in year 11 and am preparing for the chemistry olympiad. Are there specific topics within the A-Level syllabus which I should look out for? I'm hoping to improve on my results last year from c3l6/olympiad.

Thanks!

you're gonna be fine sis im preparing rn not expecting mucho but urm yaz

Reply 9

Just did the paper, ngl it looked harder than some of the past papers. To anyone that did the paper, what do u reckon grade boundaries will be. Do u reckon they will be similar to last years

Reply 10

M_m_m03

Original post by DrFuntimes24

Just did the paper, ngl it looked harder than some of the past papers. To anyone that did the paper, what do u reckon grade boundaries will be. Do u reckon they will be similar to last years

Same I found it much more difficult than the 2020 paper. I think they may be fairly low, similar to 2019 maybe. But of course with it being online no idea how some schools managed it. My school invigilated online don't know about others though. What do you think?

Reply 11

Original post by M_m_m03

Same I found it much more difficult than the 2020 paper. I think they may be fairly low, similar to 2019 maybe. But of course with it being online no idea how some schools managed it. My school invigilated online don't know about others though. What do you think?

Ye tru, it was around the same marks as last years paper, so I would hope the boundaries are around the same or even lower. On the other hand, they could raise it, cos people have had more time to prepare due to COVID and not what. Hopefully they stay around the same as the last two papers

Reply 12

anthonyphung

Hi, I also did the paper. I found this year quite difficult, but somehow really humorous and enjoyable. They managed to incorporate what is happening in the outside world into the test, which is really cool! I found the final question similar to last year, but putting that one in Q6 added lots of pressure with calculations, so yeh I flopped it badly thought I did it quite well in the 2020 paper. I think the boundaries might increase, like the C3L6 last year because of the whole online thing. Dont know how much the shift will be, but I guess higher. Just hope people don't distrupt the integrity like in C3L6

Reply 13

M_m_m03

Original post by anthonyphung

Hi, I also did the paper. I found this year quite difficult, but somehow really humorous and enjoyable. They managed to incorporate what is happening in the outside world into the test, which is really cool! I found the final question similar to last year, but putting that one in Q6 added lots of pressure with calculations, so yeh I flopped it badly thought I did it quite well in the 2020 paper. I think the boundaries might increase, like the C3L6 last year because of the whole online thing. Dont know how much the shift will be, but I guess higher. Just hope people don't distrupt the integrity like in C3L6

Haha yeh that picture of trump was quite a surprise lol. It does seem like most people found this harder than usual. Guess the boundaries increasing or decreasing just depends on how schools invigilated. How did your school go through the process? Did they invigilate remotely?

Reply 14

133266

2

Original post by M_m_m03

Haha yeh that picture of trump was quite a surprise lol. It does seem like most people found this harder than usual. Guess the boundaries increasing or decreasing just depends on how schools invigilated. How did your school go through the process? Did they invigilate remotely?

Any surprising topics? Is the synthesis the COVID drugs?

Reply 15

anthonyphung

I am in Wales, and since I am the only one doing the Olympiad in the school, they allowed me to go to school and sat the paper alone in a test room. So yeh it is an authentic test!

Reply 16

ShadowHokage

17

I sat the paper yesterday, and I would agree that it was a much more difficult paper. The questions were funny though, the question about trump 😂😂😂. Sadly, in our school we were only told about the Olympiad last week and we have mocks starting Monday so I couldn’t prepare much (only managed to look at 2018 and 2017 past papers 😭). Hopefully the grade boundaries are low !

Reply 17

richmaths

13

I thought it was a little harder than others (maybe just because of the added pressure of trying to sit it online), but it was also super interesting and has given me a lot of above A level topics to go away and study :biggrin:

Overall I don't think I did 'well', but I had fun, so I'm not that fussed. It was just relieving to do some fun chemistry without the pressure of aiming for a certain grade.

Reply 18

Anyone know when teachers get marking schemes or have they already got? I’m quite excited to get marks back, so just wanna get an idea of when we get scores back

Reply 19

M_m_m03