<p>How does one go about "studying" for a Bio/Chem/Physics Olympiad? I know they are considerably harder than AP Exams, so do regular textbooks and prep books at that point become useless? If so, what are you supposed to do to do well in these Science Olympiads?</p>
<p>Not sure if this belongs in this forum, but for Physics/Chemistry/Biology Olympiads, you will have to do college-level work to prepare for those.</p>
<p>they are not even close to as hard as an ap exam. Just study the materials your SciOly coach gave you.</p>
<p>He meant USNCO/USABO/USPHO.. Scioly is a joke compared to them</p>
<p>They're pretty difficult and very competitive. The qualifying exam for all of them is at the AP level. The national exam for all is above AP level and requires alot of thinking. If all you want is to become a national finalist, just study your AP notes and look at past exams. That way you'll get used to the problem solving questions.</p>
<p>Ah I loved science olympiads. And yes back at my school I was responsible for Cell Biology, Chem Lab, Physics lab, and Wright Stuff(no studying, building event). I just used Barron's AP and SAT II books for those subjects to study for them and I did fine. Also I checked out some textbooks at the library.</p>
<p>Yeah, I meant the higher-up ones, like USNCO, USABO, and if any of you live in Canada, the Avogadro. </p>
<p>So basically knowing AP material is good enough to do well on these contests? I haven't yet taken a real Chem/Bio/Physics class (thanks to the Canadian curriculum), so I don't really know what to expect.</p>
<p>my advice is to study really eary.i was responsible for studying ecology, cell biology, chemistry(which i totallt f***) and i had to build a boomilever for the competition</p>
<p>^^ Ivybound, this post isn't talking about THAT science olympiad. The science olympiad you're talking about is basic high school material and way out of the league of what the OP is talking about.</p>
<p>to do USPHO, get a good Physics text book with calculus, like Halliday's Fundamentals of Physics. Do the exerice in each chapter. Then go to Physics olympiad website to get the archive semi-final and final examine problems of previous year. You also can get the old questions of Physics Bowl to practice.
To do USNCO, get a good chemistry textbook, read the book and do the exercise. then go to ACS website to download the problem sets for semi-final and final exam. Make sure you know how to do it.
For USABO, read Campbell's Biology book. ask your teacher for the problem sets for USABO.</p>
<p>read wiki, its how our academic teams study</p>
<p>Definitely do released practice tests for each of these national qualifying tests. You should be aiming for 100% to try to get into each of the study camps.</p>