agreed, even Mcq was rather tricky
Do they release top 50/150?
Yea they publish a list about 2 weeks after the conclusion of the exam with a list of names for top 50 and 150
Ugh, what do you think cutoff will be this year?
bro honestly, the test was really difficult but I think top 150 honors should still be in the low 40âs
Ouch lol, have you made it the top 150 in the previous years?
nah this is my second year taking it. Praying that I made the cut
How did you know about the cutoff? Iâve asked around some friends but none of them have any idea.
Oh about a month after the test (depending on section), the section leader will send out a chart with section scores. From the score chart you can guesstimate what the cutoff was based off of people who qualified and didnât
I did pretty bad for me, I missed questions I feel like I should have gotten. On a good day I can maybe go above cutoff with a tiny margin, but not today. Iâm sad.
Its alright man it happens to all of us, I definitely also missed some questions that I couldâve easily gotten.
I feel like that MC was harder than all the previous years⊠Maybe it could fall to like a 39? 
Last year was a 42 (according to someone who made Honors) and this test felt much more difficult than that.
And me too @Bobnana 
I made top 150 last year, and I think I got mid 40s on the MC, and a 40% on the FRQ (for 2018). That was the first year where they transitioned from pure memorization and knowledge on the FRQs to problem solving/critical thinking questions that appear on the IChO. It completely threw me off last year. This year I feel like I probably got a 70% on the FRQ, and because I was used to the trickier MC, I mightâve gotten a low 50 on it. But I could definitely get higher or lower (or significantly lower) if there were any trick questions that I didnât notice.
Did you also feel like the FRQ this year was significantly harder than last yearâs?
The difficulty of USNCO really started to climb in 2014 I think, probably because the US was tired of getting silver level results in ICHO. I basically tried my best on the MCQ, realized that at best I was getting high honors, looked at the FRQs, realized that I definitely could not answer 7 and 8, so I gave up at that point and started solving them out of boredom. Honors is only a MCQ cutoff, so I have at least that on my side.
I really do not know if I want to do this again next year. Reading Atkins just does not seem enough, especially when the organic and descriptive chemistry gets even harder each year. I keep getting destroyed by the hard equilibrium problems, which usually combine solubility+electrochem/acids and bases. Especially when youâre only given a scientific calculator, so you have to know the right approximation to use sometimes. Heck even question 60, which usually can get done with high level Honors Bio knowledge, needs AP Biology level knowledge now.
I really wish that I had started studying even earlier, and I probably have done 250 hours since early February. Granted, it was my first year doing this contest, and my first year with a chemistry class(I studied myself into AP Chem), so my performance is not where it needs to be yet. My biggest mistake was reading textbooks that probably wouldnât have helped unless I got into study camp. Yeah, knowing Phys Chem proofs and equations is nice, but it barely did anything for me. I also wasted time on doing super old exams(the ones from the 1980s and 90s), as well as exams from other countries. While some of the fundamental concepts are still there, the difficulty or style is just not accurately mirrored.
@Alluvial I felt like 6-8 were the easiest questions; I solved them in less than 30 minutes. The hardest ones was #1 and #4 for me, I guessed on the last two parts for #1 and one of the equations for #4. I also know I got some parts I did finish wrong. #8, if you studied the right material, was fairly simple, just that I made a dumb mistake on the first question.
@RoastedCrab Definitely. It was harder, but I think I did better. Last year I left a whole question blank (#3, the potentiometric titration one). This year I mainly missed one or two parts here and there. From what I talked about with fellow attendees, I got 1d, 1e (didnât get 1d), 4c, 4d (over thought it), 6e (dumb mistake with reading the question unless I interpreted it right), 7d, and 8a (stupid mistake, shouldâve been an easy question) wrong, but I couldâve definitely got more wrong as well.
@ichen21 How did you study? 50s is a really good score. I read a bunch of Atkins, but it doesnât seem like itâs enough! There were many questions I couldnât solve.
@Bobnana yeah Atkins is definitely not enough. Honestly, a lot of it is just experience with chemistry and the material itself. I also highly recommend getting an organic chemistry book as well. There was a lot of organic chemistry in the last few problems (5-6 I think) and FRQ #8 was pretty much par for a college organic chemistry course. Since I had a lot of experience with what #8 was talking about I could pretty much solve it (except for the dumb mistake in 8a, I shouldâve gotten it).
So yeah, pretty much you just have to had a lot of experience with chemistry. At this point, past tests are useless for the FRQ; MC, only the 2016, 2017, and 2018 MCs will help you. My plan for next year is to use the ICHO preparatory problems, because thatâs what the FRQ was extremely similar to (just search up 51st ICHO preparatory problems and youâll see).
Best of luck to those taking it tomorrow.
It was honestly about momentum for me, I got through 1 alright, had to leave the last two parts for later. In 2, I balanced the first reaction, but did not know the reaction iodine has with the __ate, so that kinda ruined the rest of the problem. Went on to 3, which was electrochem, and for some reason d and e stumped me(I think it was confusing what the equation for the reduction/oxidation of X2 in solution was). 4 was actually quite reasonable, if I had exerted more brainpower I could have gotten 100%. 5 was pretty simple, but I forgot the formula for the organic base. 6 was also pretty simple, probably could have gotten a really good score with some more effort/vigor). 7âs later parts were kind of difficult for me, I think I just was thinking stupid. 8 probably could have been solved if I studied more organic.
In terms of the lab problems, 1 was pretty simple with quantitative analysis, there was really only one setup that you could do. I probably messed something up though. 2 was qualitative, but it was hard to evaluate. I could not give the chemical explanation for 2, and at that point I knew it really did not matter.