The Student Room Group

Isaac Senior Physics Challenge 2024

There is so much ambiguity this year on what counts etc and how weighting works.

First Question:
What questions exactly does this exclude. On question finder there are no questions labelled 'master maths'. Furthermore, almost all the maths questions are from the 'pre-uni' mastery book. Does this count as mastery maths?

Quoted from the website
Please note that Master Maths and multiple choice questions are not taken into account.

Second Question:
I noticed some questions are graded both C3 A-level and C-1 at Further A-level. Will they take the C-3 label as a judgement or the C-1 label?

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Reply 1
Quoted from the website:
Please note that Practice Maths (formerly Master Maths) and multiple choice questions are not taken into account.

If you search for practice maths or master maths on isaac physics, you will find some gameboards that aim to prepare you for the A-level exams. But SPC wants us to go further than that, so I guess questions won't count if you find them by this way.

I'm not sure about your second question. Saw one person from previous threads say that counted as you doing two questions and another person said you couldn't just add up questions of different levels because there are overlapses. Personally I think the rules won't be that strict because judges will have a hard time figuring out how many questions we do counts unless isaac physics has another way of progress monitoring that is not transparent to us.

How many questions have you done so far?
Reply 2
It looks like they've thankfully changed the guidelines to make them more clear since I last saw them which is nice. I'm still not sure about the second question either but I think they'll take the the dificulty for the lower stage (A-level+) I wouldn't be surprised if they get counted twice although I suspect they'll download progress spreadsheets and just analyse each one themselves. I really hope multy part questions with multiple choice and numeric are counted too.

I'm starting to approach a decent figure of questions but we'll leave it to the end to disuss exact figures. I've been finding little and often is a good startegy and also keeping in mind that some of the C3 questions (often outside of the Mechanics section) can be completed quite quickly. With good practice these questions can become really high value for time spent (I saw some other threads when browsing previous questions achieved where people mentioned C3s take too much time). Working through the pre-uni books especially for mathematics i've found is also one of the best ways to start approaching challenge questions as the questions in the question finder can be quite daunting at first. Good luck and hopefully we'll get in!
Reply 3
I've done 80C1, 33C2, 4C3 currently
Original post by Boson789
I've done 80C1, 33C2, 4C3 currently

Can we start before January, or do the questions only count from now?
Reply 5
Original post by hackinharry22
Can we start before January, or do the questions only count from now?

They count since September I believe but I only stared in late October and then properly in December. How many have you done?
Reply 6
Original post by hackinharry22
Oh I've started a long time ago because I need this pretty desparately for my uni application...

A Level:
216 C1
199 C2
31 C3

Further A:
28 C1
9 C2
1 C1

Uni:
9 C1

Please don't feel intimidated by this: it takes me forever to do questions nowadays and I'm forced to spend hours to make any sort of meaningful progress...

Wow, well done on the commitment. Do you have any advice or tips for doing some of the more challenging problems of just advice in general?
Original post by Boson789
Wow, well done on the commitment. Do you have any advice or tips for doing some of the more challenging problems of just advice in general?

Thank you! Start on the C2 ones, then you'll be okay with the C1s and C3s. Do C3s last and, if you've got time, do some further C1s.
(edited 9 months ago)
Reply 8
I've done 104 C1s and 18 C2s so far! They're hard so I'm scared I'm going to run out of time but I'd really like a high question count by the deadline. Which topics are most worth doing do you reckon? Some have a lot more questions than others.
(edited 9 months ago)
Anyone got any tips for working through some of the harder C3 questions? Reading the pages in the hints section isn't particularly helpful -- is it better to self-teach that topic?
Original post by myheartisblazing
Anyone got any tips for working through some of the harder C3 questions? Reading the pages in the hints section isn't particularly helpful -- is it better to self-teach that topic?

That's what I'm thinking of doing. Might watch some youtube videos on more advanced topics.
Original post by AoiJuniper
I've done 104 C1s and 18 C2s so far! They're hard so I'm scared I'm going to run out of time but I'd really like a high question count by the deadline. Which topics are most worth doing do you reckon? Some have a lot more questions than others.

Hi Juniper, mechanics have the most questions, but they get difficult so it's really just a preference. May I ask when you started?
Original post by hackinharry22
Hi Juniper, mechanics have the most questions, but they get difficult so it's really just a preference. May I ask when you started?

Yes! I find the maths C2s far easier than the mechanics ones. I started originally in september, realised I hadn't learnt enough physics yet, then i took a break from it for a few months and now I'm back at it haha.
Original post by AoiJuniper
Yes! I find the maths C2s far easier than the mechanics ones. I started originally in september, realised I hadn't learnt enough physics yet, then i took a break from it for a few months and now I'm back at it haha.

Nice, yeah I'm sort of the same :smile:
Reply 14
Does anyone know if the essential GCSE maths questions count? (the ones that are both C3 GCSE and C1 A-level) as I've done quite a few of those
Reply 15
Original post by Boson789
Does anyone know if the essential GCSE maths questions count? (the ones that are both C3 GCSE and C1 A-level) as I've done quite a few of those

I wanna know too
Reply 16
apparently mastering mathematics don't count but that's literally all I did...
Does anyone know any more information about this: 'Any number of students from a school/college can apply but the number of places allocated on the summer school to any one school/college may be limited.'
If me (a girl) and a boy from my school both have high enough question counts, do you think we'd both get places on the camp?
Reply 18
Original post by AoiJuniper
Does anyone know any more information about this: 'Any number of students from a school/college can apply but the number of places allocated on the summer school to any one school/college may be limited.'
If me (a girl) and a boy from my school both have high enough question counts, do you think we'd both get places on the camp?

two will probably be fine, they'll probably pick like the top 3 from a school with highest numbers of questions done, I would probably just gatekeep from others in the same school (less competition). Issac physics probs just said it so its like equal opportunities for everyone or like to prevent ppl copying answers from others they know
Original post by siiiiiii
two will probably be fine, they'll probably pick like the top 3 from a school with highest numbers of questions done, I would probably just gatekeep from others in the same school (less competition). Issac physics probs just said it so its like equal opportunities for everyone or like to prevent ppl copying answers from others they know

I managed to gatekeep for a few months but sadly this guy in my year is pretty damn good...so I'm praying we can both go if we do enough questions! He's also my friend so it would be annoying if only one of us could get in.
(edited 9 months ago)

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