<p>Just found out today that I made semi's with a 76! :)
I probably just made the cutoff, but if you have something in the 70s or above you probably made it. Now I just need to learn a lot more E&M in less than a week...</p>
<p>Congratulations Spyder!</p>
<p>Look at some old semi exams before you spend a lot of time on E&M. The emphasis is strongly on mechanics. Good luck!</p>
<p>Hey Spyder, did your teacher get informed by mail or what? Still waiting to hear myself.</p>
<p>yeah my teacher got the letter and new forms in the mail around the middle of the day, he just caught me before the end of the day, so some teachers may no have received it until after school. hopefully they'll put them on their website soon.</p>
<p>It's up! <a href="http://www.aapt.org/olympiad2005/semifinals.cfm%5B/url%5D">http://www.aapt.org/olympiad2005/semifinals.cfm</a>
I made it! Yay!! haha
So when's the next test date?</p>
<p>GL to everyone!</p>
<p>I have to say the modern world of communications amazes me - I just happened to read your thread because the Chem Olympiad is tomorrow and I wondered what had happened with the Physics team. I went to the site and found my son is also a semifinalist. His teacher won't even get the letter til at least Monday.<br>
Also when is the Semi-Final Exam?</p>
<p>ScoutMom - the semi exam is given in a window starting today (when teachers should have received the exam packet) and closing in one week.</p>
<p>I'm not up there this year. But I was on there last year, score of 80ish...... Dumb mistakes, 61.
But really, its not as tough for qualifying into the USAMO (which I have never done). Most of the test questions are as easy as tougher questions in my standard AP Physics book, which is certainly not the case for AMC/AIME.</p>
<p>The semifinal exam is really tough, though. Some of them are beyond my AP Physics book.</p>
<p>Anyone know what the cut off score was to be a semifinalist?</p>
<p>I don't know exactly, but in previous years it's been about 75, which seems to fit with what people are saying here for this year.</p>
<p>Texas, do you have any idea how well one must score on the semi-final exam to advance to the next step? Thanks</p>
<p>well, a maximum of 200 will take the semifinal exam and 24 advance to camp. Camp invitations are based on recommendations and transcript in addition to score on the semifinal exam. Plus students have to be available to attend both camp and the IPhO, and not be involved in any other "academic training camp". Not sure how that's defined, but it definitely excludes people involved in other Olympiads. There's quite a bit of overlap btwn people in the running for physics camp and people in the running for the math and CS Olympiad camps. So there will definitely be people who want to go to MOP or USACO camp who will turn down a physics camp invitation, making those slots available for people who actually scored below them on the exam. But it's impossible to predict how many people might turn down an invitation (I know of 2 last year, and there were probably more than that). All in all, there are too many variables to easily predict what's needed on the exam in order to get invited to camp.</p>
<p>Do they use the score your teacher gave you, or do they score the tests themselves? My teacher gave me a 76, but I didn't make it.</p>
<p>They recheck the tests with high scores.</p>
<p>Well, at least this will keep our minds off MIT results for the next week. How is everyone preparing? I've been working on 'red' problems in different chapters of serway, and then I'll hopefully work through most of the practice tests.</p>
<p>I'm just going to go through all the tests. I've gotten through most of "part A" of 2004 with a little help, but "part B" is really hard.</p>
<p>Thanks for the info Texas. It does seem like a complicated process, I wonder why they decided not to simply choose the students who score the best? </p>
<p>Do you have any information about what the actual camp is like?</p>
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I wonder why they decided not to simply choose the students who score the best?
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<p>well, camp is more than just a "prize" for doing well on the semifinal exam. They want the best possible pool of people to choose from when it comes time to pick the team to the int'l competition.</p>
<p>My son attended the camp and had a great experience. Lots of time in the lab (doing what, I'm not sure). Is there something in particular you want to know? I could ask him.</p>
<p>Four students from my school reached semi-final status</p>
<p>I just took the semi test today...it was really hard, but not too bad. I thought some of the past years' tests had been worse. The only problem that I really had no clue how to do was the second one on Part A. Guess I can't say much more since we can't discuss individual problems till March 20. Good luck to those who still have to take it!</p>