<p>General thread for the 2014 chemistry olympiad. Last year's thread was pretty popular, so I'm starting this one early so that we can discuss past questions, strategies, textbooks, logistics, etc. for this year. CC did reaaally well last year as a whole, so hopefully this year we can do even better.</p>
<p>For those unfamiliar with the Chemistry Olympiad (or olympiads in general), there is an International X Olmpiad every year in various countries of the globe. These are high-school level competitions (agewise, not material wise :)). The US and other countries have various internal processes for selecting who they will send. In the US, you first take the local chemistry olympiad exam. This is a 60 question, multiple choice test (in most areas) that tests you on what you would learn in regular chemistry, a lab, AP Chemistry, and the first chapters of organic chemistry. If you do well enough to qualify from your region (some regions require a score in the low 40s and some in the high 50s) then you get to take the US National Chemistry Olympiad along with 1000 other kids. This test covers General College Chemistry even more in depth, asks many more questions on organic chemistry 1 and 2, and even includes some physical chemistry. It has 60 multiple choice questions BUT ALSO has 8 multi-part free response questions and 2 labs. These labs posit a goal or question and the student must perform an experiment using the materials provided, creating his or her own procedure (this can be extremely frustrating!). The top ~150 and 50 scores are honored with honors and high honors respectively. The top 20 scorers are invited to go to a training camp at the air force academy over the summer, and from there the final 4 scorers are selected to go to the International Chemistry Olympiad, IChO.</p>
<p>The 2014 icho will be held in Hanoi, Vietnam.</p>
<p>Tell me if I made any mistakes in the OP if you see them.</p>
<p>On a personal note, I rocked the local exam last year (57/60) but completely flopped on the national (no idea). Any good strategies/ books for the national exam would be of great interest to me. </p>
<p>I would love to help somebody solve or explain a particular problem, so ask away in this thread or pm me! I’m really going to buckle down in February to try to make the camp, even though I’m a senior, because I love learning about chemistry and competing.</p>
<p>I’m a senior too. I participated in the 2013 USNCO and got a 42/60 on Part I (They don’t tell you about the other two sections) of the National Exam (I didn’t get to do any serious studying.). Only five people in my region (including me) took the exam and I was the only one from my school to go in years. I ended up tying for first in the region with one other kid. The national average was a 35/60. I heard that to get into the top 150, a 48/60 was needed. Oh well. I definitely had a lot of fun taking the exam.</p>
<p>Anyway, I really would have liked to get into the top 150, not because of college applications or whatever (I’m a senior, so it doesn’t matter anyway.), but rather because I’d like my school and my region to be recognized. Maybe more kids would get interested in the USNCO and in chemistry in general.</p>
<p>The problem is that I’m not sure if I can take the exam again. I’m not taking any chemistry classes this year so I don’t know if I’m allowed to and my parents probably wouldn’t want to drive me all the way to the test center (3 hours away and I can’t drive) again. I could tell they were pretty annoyed last year and they would probably get really irritated if I brought up the 2014 USNCO. I’m also probably going to be busy this school year. Maybe some other student(s) would be interested this year. After all, it’s much more intimidating to hear, “No one from our school has taken this test in years.” than, “Someone from our school took the test last year.”. I still doubt that anyone would take it, though.</p>
<p>To sum up my post, I’m a senior who would like to participate in the USNCO for the 2nd time and get into the top 150 to plant a seed of hope for my chemistry-deprived school and region. The problem is that I probably can’t even take the test this year.</p>
<p>I’ve heard that people use books such as Atkins and Zumdahl (You’ve probably already heard that, though). I hope that you do well on the USNCO this year.</p>
<p>You can take the test regardless of whether you are enrolled in a chemistry class. And we are in the same boat! I had to personally get the test started again for my school so that we could compete. I also come from a crappy region (we only send 3, and for the past several years before me most have qualified with scores in the low 40s)If you do decide to participate again, I wish you luck. </p>
<p>I might try to bump this thread periodically to get the word out. If you study the past exams and make a point of understanding every question, you learn a TON about chemistry.</p>
<p>And yes, everybody says to use Atkins/Zumdahl but I don’t know if that is for the local or the national. I used an old Chang book (my AP Chem book) and did just fine, though, so I don’t think it really matters.</p>
<p>yeah…but how do you contact your ACS local section coordinator? I can’t find her contact info. anywhere, but I know my local section id…thats about it…</p>
<p>Just from looking at the table of contents, I can tell you that it will be enough to advance to nationals but I think to do well on the national exam you need a stronger organic background and maybe a bit of introductory physical/ analytical knowledge as well. If you make it to study camp, you might as well be shooting to make the team, in which case you want to be the best at chemistry possible, so you’ll have to go farther than introductory chem. </p>
<p>I recommend that you review past exams held on the acs website to supplement your knowledge. If you are diligent about it and look at the wikipedia article of things that you missed, you will figure out what you need to know.</p>
<p>My goal this year is to make top 150 or better, preferably top 50. I haven’t started studying yet, but will prolly start in November this year. With about 200-300 hours of studying would I be able to achieve my goal?</p>
<p>Well, I heard that Atkins is the txtbook that a lot of people preferred since it has been established that the USNCO questions are based off of those found in Atkins. So, I assume we would just skip over the calculus in it? </p>
<p>I don’t recall needing calculus for the national exam, and I again recommend checking out the acs website to see what the problems are like. I actually got the test started myself for my school, so I don’t know anybody irl who preferred one book over the other. I still think any AP Chem book is fine for the local (I used a relatively unknown one and got a pretty high score), and for the national one you will need more advanced college textbooks. </p>
<p>So don’t stress about which book to buy. If you’re in AP chem, use that book. If you aren’t, go ahead and get Atkins. It’s more important that you have a book and get started studying than it is to worry about which book to get imo.</p>
<p>I’m not sure. I’m pretty sure the reason I didn’t do well in nationals is because I DIDN’T study orgo independently. I would recommend that you look for some college’s syllabus/ course guidelines online and see what book they require. You could also do MIT OCW. That’s what I’m going to do (I think).</p>