<p>In order to take the national exam, you must place within the top amount specific to your local section. For example: my region (Central Massachusetts) is allocated by the national office to allow the top 10 scorers on the regional exam to take the national exam. However, no more than two students per school are allowed to take the national exam. So say for instance you and two other students at your school place within the top 10 (or however many students your section is allowed) scorers. Only the top two scorers from your school would be able to take the exam, and the 3rd scorer would not be included in that top 10 (varies by section) amount. The amount of students allowed to take the national exam in each local section is based upon population. Hope that answers your question.</p>
<p>Kudos to the U.S. 2008 IChO team for winning 3 bronze medals and a silver. I'm sure Hungary's inordinate emphasis on inorganic chemistry made this year a different experience for most, but the team did very well and with a sophomore returning next year as a junior, the US team has a bright future ahead.</p>
<p>yea thanks jaspher.</p>
<p>is there a specific link on the USNCO website that links to the ACS local site, or are there individual websites for that (i cant find my site and i dont know what its called)</p>
<p>I was able to find out what section I belonged to by e-mailing the national office (the e-mail address should be somewhere on the main ACS site). Some local sections have a website, and some don't. What I would suggest is to e-mail the national office giving them your zip code and location and ask them for the contact details of your local section coordinator for the Olympiad.</p>
<p>Sorry to revive this thread, but USAMO/USNCO for me both came out the same day.</p>
<p>This is not really for colleges, but just because I am curious, I was just wondering which is more prestigious?</p>
<p>I got brought into this discussion because one of my friends was bragging to me how he made USNCO and I didnt and how its by far the hardest and most important olympiad to make.</p>
<p>Thanks</p>
<p>EDTI: I kind of went on with too much useless info.</p>
<p>Yes, taking the USAMO is far more prestigious than taking the USNCO National Exam. Qualifying for the USNCO National Exam pales in comparison to qualifying for the USAMO; the USAMO is a few orders of magnitude greater in difficulty as well ;)</p>
<p>i’m taking usnco national exam in 2 weeks, does anyone have any idea how to prepare for practicals?
thanks.</p>
<p>The Lab practical? It’s not very important compared to the FRQ or MC.</p>
<p>To prepare for it, look over lab chemistry books, and learn different techniques and most importantly, look at past USNCO lab exams. </p>
<p>However, you should only worry about the lab practical if you are absolutely awful at labs and can’t even set up a procedure on the exam.</p>
<p>OR if you’re decent at labs and you’re very confident that you’re ready for FRQ / MC, then go ahead and prep for the lab practical.</p>
<p>really? the guy in charge of usnco (i think) said that practicals and frq was each 100pts and objective was 60 pts only for a total of 260 pts…?</p>
<p>any books you suggest if you are a usnco veteran? i have atkins, but i dont know how much i will be able to go over it in 1.5 weeks… lol i thought i bombed the local exam so i assumed i was out for this year, but then 2.5 weeks before natl usnco i found out i made it.</p>
<p>Not sure how competitive our area is… My best friend and I made it with 54. I heard atkins is enough but I think I’ll just stick with my good ol’ brown & lemay. Maybe I should prepare for nats, but I’ll see what I can do with just chem ap knowledge.</p>
<p>anybody have any reccomendations for a good way to cram organic chem for the test?</p>
<p>??? 10 char</p>
<p>So, are there any other past campers here (or people who received honors) who could let us know how they did on the national test last year? I am taking the national test next friday, and averaging about 55 on the MC, 75% (?) on the FR, but messing up the labs pretty bad.</p>
<p>It would be nice to know approximately what scores I should aim for, thanks.</p>
<p>my son was finalist few year back, but he did not go to the training camp. The most important thing to prepare the final is to look at the problem set from previous year examination. You can get the problem and solution from ACS website.<br>
For organic chemistry, the problem usually simple. you need to know the function group in different type of organic compound, linke ether, ester, ketone, aldehyde. You need to know the nomenclature of paraffins, olefins, aromatics. You need to know the isomer of paraffins which I think is enough.<br>
Doing Lab is more difficult to prepare. I think you need to calm and looks at the chemicals and equipment they give you. Then apply chemistry principal.</p>
<p>I don’t think you get score. you only get is in each catagory that you are below average, average, above average, or perfect.
I think any reasonable book will do. My son use a very old book I got from library for $1. The book is “general Chemistry” from James Brady. The book is right to the point with good examples. Some of the new book with so many illustration and lack of example of calculation is somewhat useless for preparing the exam.</p>
<p>Hi, is anyone here familiar with the rules + registration for the National Exam? This is going to be kinda long but I am kinda worried that I just took the exam in place of someone else?</p>
<p>I initially did not qualify, but I found out (after April 17) that I would be taking the National Exam because some of the people that beat me were not US Citizens.</p>
<p>However, I am kind of confused how this will work. I checked the USNCO handbook online and on page 6-4, it says that everything for the certificate forms and participation confirmation should have been turned in by April 17 (<a href=“American Chemical Society”>American Chemical Society, page 6-4)</p>
<p>This leads to kind of a problem. I took the USNCO national test today (I wont talk about specifics except registration since the deadline hasnt passed yet), and ALL that they gave me was a USNCO number. </p>
<p>Infact, I DID NOT even have an opportunity to bubble in my name, school…they did make me sign some sheet but I only think thats if you qualify for camp. </p>
<p>So I have a question</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Was the registration deadline 4/17 (can someone read the handbook or more importantly, is anyone familiar with this rule), and if it was, and your name wasnt on that first sheet, and I still take it, what will happen? I know for the Math Olympiad, if you dont turn in the SIII student form a week before the test, you cannot take it</p></li>
<li><p>Since they only gave me a number and I did not bubble in my name or anything…I am kind of concerned that I might have taken the test in place of someone else (the person that was originally signed up to take it but was not a US citizen-the person that would have been singed up if they turned the forms in on the proper time)…How will I know for sure that I actually am matched up to the number and will take it?</p></li>
<li><p>Does the USNCO have some kind of qualifying list online (I cannot find one for some reason-i know math, bio, and physics all have a list of the students…and thats also so that colleges can confirm that they did indeed take it)? Because I want to make sure that I took the test and not in place of someone else. Also, next year, if I apply to colleges, I do not want to have colleges think I did not take it because I was not registered to take it when I just spent 4+ hours taking it.</p></li>
<li><p>This is kind of referring to the questions in the above posts. They send back a semi-score report right? When they send it back, do they sent it back matching the score to the student number or the student name? I just need to have some way to confirm that I did not just take the test for someone else.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Btw, i asked the usnco coordinator and he gave me some ambigious answer and I didnt want to distract him again so I didnt ask again because it didnt seem like he even knew what I was asking? Maybe I am totally wrong, but I am reading the rules in the handbook and they seem pretty clear…also they said that schools can only nominate 2 poeple…our school had 11…so that also might be a problem but tahts a different issue.</p>
<p>Well now that the deadlines past, how do you guys think you did?</p>
<p>think i got a 57 on mc and an 86-7 on frq. Felt so good after the mc and had a sigh of relief when i saw i knew how to do the free responses, but I did botch some explanations up :/</p>
<p>and the only reaction that gave me some trouble was the ethoxide one. meh. i wrote OH2- :P</p>
<p>I did the same thing as you on the ethoxide one. I killed the labs, on the second one, I got the answer with 0 percent error, haha. On multiple choice, I think I got like mid 50s unless I made a bunch of silly mathematical errors. I think I did pretty good on the FRQ except I was kind of rushed for time. How many points do you think they’ll take off if I show all the work correctly then just write a completely wrong answer because I plugged it into my calculator wrong?</p>
<p>The funny part of this paranoia is that a lot of the IChO medalists have fizzled out at the undergrad level, or have fallen back into the middle of the pack.</p>