British Physics Olympiad

-G-a-v-

Basically...

- Who's planning on doing this this year?
- What does it involve?
- How hard is it?

Thanks :smile:

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Reply 1

username51312

Anyone know where i can get past papers?

Reply 2

nota bene

Whyknows

Anyone know where i can get past papers?

here is the official site, seems like there are old papers there.

And as for taking part, I will probably not do it, I will in the maths olympiad though, last year I was best in my school, but didn't make it to the national finals...don't think I will this year either, but we'll see.

Reply 3

username51312

Hmm past papers look interesting. The only sad thing is that best brains of the world might die if there will be some bombing raid in Iran.

Reply 4

-G-a-v-

So anyone else up for this then? Round 1 is soon it seems :smile:

Reply 5

ad absurdum

I might do this (along with the maths one). How does one go about entering this?

Reply 6

nota bene

I have no idea of how it works in UK but here in Sweden the school (i.e. some teacher at school) enlightens the organizers (Swedish mathemathical society in my case when it comes to maths...) that the school will participate. And then the school will get the papers on the day it takes place and you just tell your teacher you want to do it...
But as I said it probably is a bit different in every country... but check out the official site - there should be info available there...

And well I might just say that here in Sweden the maths olympiad qualification round was yesterday and I didn't do too well, completely solved 3 out of 6 problems... though a classmate did pretty good and solved 4 out of 6 and was really close to solving the other two...he might have a chance to advance to the national finals, but we'll see...

Edit: here is the link to the international page of the maths olympiad...

and here is the events calendar for the UK... hope it is correct... you probably know better than me...

Reply 7

Swinely

I might be entering this year :smile:

Reply 8

Orizon

I just did the British Physics Olympiad today - the first paper. It was so much harder compared to last years paper, where I got around three quarters of the questions right - this time around, it was just infuriating. Also annoying was requiring knowledge of PHY5, which we haven't studied yet, since it's only October. Overall, I don't think that I did very well; if I get more than the 40% required for a merit, I think I'll be lucky. Anyone else?

Reply 9

-G-a-v-

I've got it this week....just need to find a free hour to do it...

Reply 10

Orizon

It all seems very casual doesn't it? We're all doing it at different times and there's nothing stopping you from getting the questions (or answers, even) from someone else.

Not that you will since you're bound by honour and all...

Reply 11

-G-a-v-

I think the first round isnt meant to be overly strict.....its just a qualifying round I guess. Round 2 is more formal though i.e. theres a specific date that the paper has to be taken on.

Reply 12

Ads.

I did that paper today. Bloody hell I found it hard, literally only answered about 3 questions, and I know I got them wrong. Lol anyway, it was a bit of fun.

Reply 13

Orizon

I got my answer script back today - 52%, which is just over the score for a merit (40%).

@Ads. - You answered 3 questions out of 6, that's not too bad, since one of them was worth 12 marks and another was 16!

Reply 14

Ads.

Ok I think I phrased that slightly wrong. I answered 3 questions that accumulated a total worth of 15marks! Yeah so thats only 30% if I got everything right, which I know havent becuase we went over a few of the answers at the end.

I like to do it as it gives me physics practice - not becuase I particularly excel at it.

Reply 15

Meat Loaf Rocks

I did it yesterday and thought it was pretty tough, some of the stuff you needed to know isn't in the syllabus at all, ie how pressure affects the rate of flow of a liquid etc. I ansered about half but will be surprised if I get more than 30%. I do feel though that if we had of done some of the topics at all vaguely within the last few years then i could of doubled my scores, but hey, really enjoyed the challenge, i wish i had more real life problems like that to solve in physics

Reply 16

suneilr

Ok so I just totally messed it up :frown:

I'm really annoyed because I knew how to do some of those questions but i totally forgot in the olympiad :frown:

Reply 17

hungry_hog

Is the level of prestige attached to the IPO similar to that of the IMO?

Reply 18

joker_900

Haha my school thought it'd be funny to spring the test on us last thursday without telling any of us. So all the physicists took it with no preparation lol. I did totally rubbish - didn't even realise there was a second page til the last 10 mins! I spent like half an hour on the first question coz it was pissing me off so much, ended up getting 32ish or something for the answer.

Reply 19

shellnexus

hungry_hog

Is the level of prestige attached to the IPO similar to that of the IMO?

Actually, it's the IPhO, and it's a pretty big deal. This year there were more than 80 countries participating, so it's just slightly smaller than the IMO.

The IPhO is the biggest of the three International Science Olympiads. This year's Olympiad in Singapore was particularly good - they managed to invite 4 Nobel Prize Laureates and Paul Davies.

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