***USNCO 2016***

I got a camp call.

Congrats @huhululu !!

Thank you!!!

is it correct the honor and high honor list will come out after the camp call?

When do the top 150 and top 50 results come out?

The top 150 and top 50 come out on May 6th.

do you guys think the result will come out today?

@bettytchen No.

Why not?

@racecarr5 USNCO is never follows its schedule.

When will they post

Do you think ACS will post the result next week?@1golfer1

It doesn’t look like they’ll post today like 1golfer1 said so probably next week

I agree @Mosper

20 names of 2016 camp were chosen early this week. Individual was notified. No announcement yet.

My son (hereinafter “Mike”) received the call from ACS on Monday and happily accepted the offer to attend the study camp.

The followings are his way of preparing for the exams:

  1. Mike learned the following subjects in middle school: General Chemistry, Inorganic Chemistry, and Organic Chemistry. He attended some online classes, found a few private tutors for additional training, and worked at school in some chemistry-related clubs/projects. If you have a chemist in the family, learn from that family member. (lucky!) Mike went through the general chemistry stuffs three times before attending high school to have a solid foundation of basic chemistry theories, inside and out. He took AP Chemistry as a sophomore.

  2. For the record, Mike did not buy the six text books recommended earlier in this thread, let alone read all of them. However, Mike has a collection of chemistry textbooks through the above self-study/tutoring process. In addition, Mike spent little time learning biochemistry, thereby having only superficial knowledge of that subject. Finally, he is also pretty good with maths, physics, and computer science.

  3. Once the foundation has been laid down, Mike started working on the prior exams. Mike only used US exams as his tools and did not study other countries’ exams. His way of “studying” the exams are: i) start with the local exam first; ii) complete each available local exam under 90 mins (even though the official time is 110 mins); iii) check the answers and find out the weak spots identified by the wrong answers; iv) record all the wrong answers in a separate file according to the test year; v) record all the theories with which he had trouble answering the question; and vi) refine his knowledge of the identified weak spots. After this round of preparation, Mike scores for the local exam were mostly above 55 out of 60. That was the minimal goal for us to qualify for the national exam (brutal competition in Mike’s high school, which is full of smart and hardworking students!) Here, his maths skill may help a little bit. For example, in Mike’s case, he rarely wrote down the long math equations on paper. Instead, he had the equation “flashing” in his head and simply pressed the buttons on his calculator to get the answers. This may save a few minutes in the real exam. Another test-taking skill is that sometimes estimation of the right answer can give you a range for values; then just pick the answer choice which falls into this value range without calculating the real value. I am sure all of you are battle tested. You know what I am talking about here. Also useful is to mark the tough question during the exam to come later and revisit. Complete the easy questions first.

  4. After completing all the available local exams, the same process was followed for the MCQ section (Part I) of the national exam. In 2015 Mike made it to the honor list of the national exam. But due to his poor performance in Part II FRQ’s, he did not make it to the high honor list. Therefore, this year, on top of refining the test-taking skills for MC questions, Mike focused on how to tackle the FRQ’s. His strategies were similar to the above-explained strategies for MCQ’s: taking the test; identifying weak spots; enhancing the knowledge on those identified weak spots. By going over previous tests, Mike found some cues from the questions and even found some inconsistency between answers from different years.

  5. For Part III, Practical exams, Mike simply browsed through most of Q’s and took note of the attacking strategies, lab skills tested, experimental designs, etc., but did not do any wet chemistry. Basically just run the reaction in his head.

  6. Summary of this year’s competition, luckily Mike scored high enough among his classmates to qualify for the national exam as the top scorer of his high school. In the national round, he had the same feeling as most of you who took it: the exam was WEIRD. TBH, right after he walked out of the test he thought that he failed miserably this time. Nonetheless, because I knew how hard he worked on these problems this year, I still had a slim hope that he would NOT be that bad! Fortunately, he was lucky this year to get the call.

When preparing for the test, planning and dedication are very important. There is no shortcut. Only diligent work counts. Learning chemistry is just like that. Over the course, things will make sense to you.

In a footnote, one of Mike’s friends attended the ChemWOOT lectures from AOPS and found it helpful (not enough for him to qualify for the study camp, though). Rumor has it that four students who attended this year’s ChemWOOT classes made it to the study camp. So if you have some free time and additional money (no more than $800), it would be an option to consider when preparing for this exam. Good luck!

Good advice. Tell Mike good luck and have fun at the camp

Thanks. He loves chemistry. I saw sparks in his eyes when talking about wonders in chemistry! It is an honor to meet other like-minded kids at the camp.

@www7102 Thanks. He loves chemistry. I saw sparks in his eyes when talking about wonders in chemistry! It is an honor to meet other like-minded kids at the camp. Regardless of the final results from the study camp, it would be an eye-opening experience for Mike.

Btw it was 5 ppl from chemwoot (from a person who is in it)