Physics Olympiad

Pre-College Issues High School Life
21

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<p>roughly half (it varies)</p>

22

<p>Hmmm those practice tests seem too easy. If the actual is like those, i might take this...</p>

23

<p>Since those practice tests WERE the tests form past years, I would assume that the actual thing will be similar. I was also quite surprised by the difficulty. I somehow managed to get over 80% right. If the cutoff really is 50%, this should be fun :)</p>

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<p>Yeah i thought physics olympiad was hardcore beyond my abilities, but those were not difficult at all. eh guess i will have to wait until next year to take.</p>

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<p>ok, i asked some of last years seniors. they said that our school had people make semifinalist with scores ranging from mid 80s to high 110s, so i'm guessing a score of around 85 is the cutoff (if i recall, i THINK it's out of 130, not sure), whatever that means.</p>

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<p>Where are the answers to the old tests????</p>

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<p>The answers to the old multiple choice are at the end of the tests. I don't think they released solutions to the free response ones.</p>

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<p>2004 test was easier than mostly all, a little under 50% usually is the cutoff. And also most of the time you think you're right on the problems and you're not so whoever the guy said who thought he had an 80% is probably wrong. There are a lot of very very subtle traps in physics and they make the problem seem a lot easier than it really is.</p>

29

<p>ugh, I took the test yesterday. did not do so well on the multiple choice. an excellent free response could make up for it, but I somehow doubt that the free response went <em>that</em> well. does it count 50/50?</p>

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<p>"thought he had an 80% is probably wrong"</p>

<p>Actually, I was talking about a past year's multiple choice test. It has the answers with it. I did get over an 80%. Though I didn't feel as confident about this year's, unfortunately. The free response didn't seem too bad, but some of the MC questions were tough.</p>

31

<p>haha well multiple choice is worth like 15% of the score so...yah.</p>

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<p>the mult choice is worth 29% (40 points out of a total 140 possible)</p>

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<p>oh Ms. Texas137, what do you think the cutoff will be this year?</p>

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<p>I don't really know. More than 60, but not more than 85 (I'm just guessing)</p>

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<p>"the mult choice is worth 29% (40 points out of a total 140 possible)"</p>

<p>Are you sure about that? I thought my teacher said it was out of 120, with MC only being 20 of that.</p>

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<p>no MC counts double, so out of 140</p>

37

<p>excellent. that hopefully means my teacher didn't double my MC score when he told me what I got. perhaps I didn't do quite as bad after all. Unless by 70/120 he really just meant to tell me I got 70/140. In which case I suck at physics.</p>

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<p>Ok, the last day to mail the test was Friday, so I assume we can discus it now...
Was anyone else suprised at the number of multiple choice questions? All the practice tests seem to have thirty... I scored only 11 on the MC (I did far better on the free response, so I ended up in the high 90s). What did everyone get for the solution to the last problem? For (A) I ended up with 4R I think, which was wrong, but my teacher mailed the test and forgot what the answer was. I had no clue on the second part. Wish I hadn't spent so much time on that question :)</p>

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<p>There are a few bumps in my carpet.</p>

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<p>the last problem? I believe I had something like 4(R^2)(omega^2)/(velocity^2)</p>