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Topic: How do you study for Chemistry Olympiad?  (Read 51655 times)

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Offline Sophia7X

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How do you study for Chemistry Olympiad?
« on: January 30, 2012, 05:17:13 PM »
Besides doing old tests?

Recommend any textbooks/workbooks? All tips appreciated.
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Offline UG

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Re: How do you study for Chemistry Olympiad?
« Reply #1 on: January 30, 2012, 05:27:56 PM »
Have you seen the syllabus they have on their website? But yes definitely past tests, there are lots avaliable from different countries for a bit of variety. I also recommend studying lab procedures. There was an early thread on this, scroll down a bit to find the post by XGen.

Offline Borek

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Re: How do you study for Chemistry Olympiad?
« Reply #2 on: January 30, 2012, 05:32:34 PM »
ChemBuddy chemical calculators - stoichiometry, pH, concentration, buffer preparation, titrations.info

Offline XGen

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Re: How do you study for Chemistry Olympiad?
« Reply #3 on: January 31, 2012, 09:24:52 PM »
your best bet is probably asking your chem teacher for general tests and doing previous tests
if you search for it you can probably find the thread I started a couple weeks ago.

Offline Kran

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Re: How do you study for Chemistry Olympiad?
« Reply #4 on: February 01, 2012, 07:56:39 AM »
I`m from brazil, and i`m studying for the final selection test for the brazilian IChO team.
You will need to study a lot of things that you dont see in highschool.
If you wanna study hard for chemical olympiads, you can start with some general chemistry book, and then an organic chemistry one.

I`ve read Atkins and then Solomons, worked well for me. (Atkins have some calculus, but you can mostly ignore it)

When reading these books, you wont probably have time to do all exercises. But you should try to make at least half of them.
Hopefully a future member of brazilian IChO team.

Offline UG

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Re: How do you study for Chemistry Olympiad?
« Reply #5 on: February 02, 2012, 04:05:32 PM »
i`m studying for the final selection test for the brazilian IChO team.
Please keep us updated on your progress  :)

Offline Olympiad_Tutor

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Re: How do you study for Chemistry Olympiad?
« Reply #6 on: March 05, 2012, 10:33:44 AM »
1. solve a few old tests
2. study the old tests to figure out the scope of knowledge needed
3. pick up textbooks that cover the scope identified. many different textbooks will work. I agree that organic chem is a must.
4. work hard to expand your knowledge
5. work hard to solve problems
6. periodically return to 2. and adjust your textbook selection.

Start preparing early. Work hard!

worked for me   8)
« Last Edit: March 05, 2012, 10:52:04 AM by Ch_Olympiad_Winner »
National Olympiad winner will tutor AP Chem and Chemistry Olympiad students. Tutoring is done online via a whiteboard with Voice, Drawing capabilities. PM for details.

Offline Sophia7X

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Re: How do you study for Chemistry Olympiad?
« Reply #7 on: March 05, 2012, 05:08:38 PM »
I'm preparing the local section test (in a couple weeks)... Our local section test is 70 questions (60 questions + 10 extra "difficult" ones) + free response instead of the normal 60.

I've done 12 old local exams and 1 national exam. I've been scoring 53-58 out of 60. What do you think is a score that will guarantee nomination for the national exam?
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Offline XGen

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Re: How do you study for Chemistry Olympiad?
« Reply #8 on: March 05, 2012, 11:02:34 PM »
The score really depends on your school. I have about the same scores as you, at least on the older local exams. However, I know my school is extremely competitive. The national cutoff might be somewhere around 53, 54, but I know that in my school there will be multiple people scoring higher. Since there is the rule that only two people per school may go to nationals, you must aim to beat your peers in addition to gaining nomination.

Good luck! I guess we can see how our results are in a few weeks. Out of curiosity, what year are you in?

Offline Sophia7X

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Re: How do you study for Chemistry Olympiad?
« Reply #9 on: March 06, 2012, 01:31:58 PM »
11th grade.

I asked my teacher about a score that will guarantee nomination-- he said 65/70. Last year's top score was 68/70. He said the last ten extra questions are supposedly difficult and may involve topics that I have never learned before. That was quite encouraging... But on the bright side, one of the chem teachers has a limo in which he will be transporting all of us to the testing center :DD (haha, I'm so excited for that... I've never been in a limo before. Imagine the reaction of the kids from other schools, lol).

Did yours have a free response (local section)? We will have one. I'm not sure if it contributes to the overall score, or if it's used for a tiebreaker. Nervous as heck XD. It would suck to do all this preparation only to not get nominated. I think I've done over 700 chemistry problems now.

and good luck to you, too!
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Offline XGen

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Re: How do you study for Chemistry Olympiad?
« Reply #10 on: March 06, 2012, 09:18:41 PM »
We don't happen to have a free response portion.. I can't say that our section is too competitive, but last year at the other school in our district we did have a person go to the study camp. Luckily, that person was a senior and in the other school.

To be honest, on the local tests that I've done, the only questions I don't know are the ones involving properties of random compounds. Tests that have a good amount of those questions throw me off, and I get like 53, 52. Without those, I can get a 58-60 easily.

If I don't make it this year, I'll still have 3 years ahead of me, but I honestly don't know what I'd study. Of course, I'd wait in my school curriculum to skip chem and then take AP chem, but would that really teach me anything? :(

Tell me how it goes! I assume we'll be taking it at around the same time haha

Offline Olympiad_Tutor

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Re: How do you study for Chemistry Olympiad?
« Reply #11 on: March 07, 2012, 12:14:11 AM »
We don't happen to have a free response portion.. I can't say that our section is too competitive, but last year at the other school in our district we did have a person go to the study camp. Luckily, that person was a senior and in the other school.

To be honest, on the local tests that I've done, the only questions I don't know are the ones involving properties of random compounds. Tests that have a good amount of those questions throw me off, and I get like 53, 52. Without those, I can get a 58-60 easily.

If I don't make it this year, I'll still have 3 years ahead of me, but I honestly don't know what I'd study. Of course, I'd wait in my school curriculum to skip chem and then take AP chem, but would that really teach me anything? :(

Tell me how it goes! I assume we'll be taking it at around the same time haha

take an AP Chem practice test. do you get 95% correct? if you don't then you will learn something from the course.

if you score 56 now you could go far within 3 years.

National Olympiad winner will tutor AP Chem and Chemistry Olympiad students. Tutoring is done online via a whiteboard with Voice, Drawing capabilities. PM for details.

Offline XGen

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Re: How do you study for Chemistry Olympiad?
« Reply #12 on: March 07, 2012, 06:51:07 AM »
Yeah I have taken all the AP Chem tests and have gotten 90-95% on them (when I mess up it is usually a computational sort of mistake). I feel like the labs in AP Chem might help though, quite a bit.

Offline Olympiad_Tutor

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Re: How do you study for Chemistry Olympiad?
« Reply #13 on: March 07, 2012, 07:07:36 AM »
I lived in a small town without access to a lab.  I ended up studying in detail a lab manual for an organic chem lab. That helped a lot.
National Olympiad winner will tutor AP Chem and Chemistry Olympiad students. Tutoring is done online via a whiteboard with Voice, Drawing capabilities. PM for details.

Offline Sophia7X

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Re: How do you study for Chemistry Olympiad?
« Reply #14 on: March 19, 2012, 10:31:50 PM »
Taking it on Thursday!
I'm wondering of anyone already took it? Is it better or worse than previous years?
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