Olympiads in Year 1-4

As this is my first time writing an article for Collegetalk, here’s a brief introduction about myself. I’m Gloria, and will be in Year 5 in 2011. After looking back at the past 4 years of my life at NUSHS, let me share with you a little about taking math and science Olympiads and NUSH Olympiad trainings in the lower years (Yr 1-4). (Beware: Long article ahead)

Olympiads for Yr 1-4 is a relatively new phenomenon, with the exception of the Singapore Mathematics Olympiad (SMO). The math Olympiad ‘is the largest and oldest mathematics competition in Singapore’ (quoted from website), having started in the mid-1950s under a different name. The Singapore Junior Physics Olympiad (SJPO) held its first competition in 2008, and the 1^st Singapore Junior Chemistry Olympiad (SJChO) was held in 2010. Most students take the SJPO and SJChO in Year 3 and 4, though there are a few Year 1s and 2s who take part as well. There is no junior biology Olympiad as of yet. (Not that I know of at least.)

You may be asking yourself why you should waste you precious time participating in and training for these Olympiads. The first reason will be that you really like that subject and you want to stretch your brain with intellectually demanding questions. Chances are, most people don’t take Olympiads for this reason. The second reason is that you want to see how well you fare nationally. The third is that you want some embellishment on your graduation transcript. There are also a million other reasons, like my-friends-are-taking-it-so-I-shall-too, but the one casual reason I find the most compelling is that there is simply no reason not to. There is always no harm trying.

Math Olympiad

I believe that most NUS High students will be familiar with math Olympiads, since there are many held in primary school. The SMO offers similar questions but of a higher difficulty, covering more topics of course. For the junior section, while topics like trigonometry is not necessary, knowledge of these topics are useful. For the senior section, topics like calculus is deemed not necessary, but once again are useful. There are 2 rounds, the first being a 2-3 hour paper of 35 MCQ and short-response questions, the second round being a 2-3 hour paper of 5-10 long questions. (I’m not sure of the exact number or the duration; please correct me.) The second round, which is the special round, involves long explanation question and proving questions.

Our school offers math O training from Year 1 to Year 4, covering topics ranging from Geometry, Permutation and Combination, Sequences, and many more. An external trainer from NUS conducts these lessons, and from past experience the modules are centered on practicing past Olympiad first round questions. However, I think (this is purely my opinion) the rigorous training is helpful for SMO prep as it trains your mind to think the SMO way (the more unorthodox way). Even if it doesn’t help in SMO, it has helped me in normal math modules as well, as some topics do overlap, or are taught ahead in Math O classes. For the year 2009, one has to take a selection test to take the Year 1 module, and the following modules are by invite only (the Year 1 module is a prerequisite).

Physics Olympiad

The next oldest junior Olympiad is the SJPO. The SJPO syllabus covers the usual secondary school physics syllabus, including but not limited to Mechanics, E&M, Thermal Physics and Thermodynamics, Optics, Oscillation and Waves etc. It also includes some Relativity, Quantum Mechanics and Atomic Physics. However, no calculus is needed. There are also 2 rounds, the first round and the special round (only shortlisted students participate in the special round). The first is an MCQ round, 50 MCQ questions in 90 minutes. The questions are not especially hard, especially for our school students. The second round is a theory round with 8-12 long questions. This year, around 1200 students participated, 17 received gold medals, 41 received silver medals and 47 received bronze medals. There are also honorable mentions given out.

Our school offers training for Physics O from year 3 onwards. Depending on your cohort, the first module is offered in Yr 3 Sem 1 or 2. For my batch, the first module was open to anyone, and around 60 people applied (half of which dropped out halfway). The following modules were by invitation. From what I understand, the batch after mine had their first module by invitation only, while the next was open to all. However, I’m just going to talk about my own experience. Year 3 Sem 2: Purely mechanics module. It was pitched at an extremely high level and many people lost faith. I understand that the level was pitched down after our year, so don’t worry about dying in that module. Year 4 Sem 1: This was some rigorous preparation for SJPO, which is held in August. It covers every topic of the SJPO syllabus, except for mechanics. Year 4 Sem 2: Purely mechanics again, mostly in preparations for the SJPO special round. (This was what I had experienced, there may be changes here and there, but all topics will be covered in at least one module.) Be warned- some of these modules are not for the faint-hearted, and do not expect to pass the tests of the modules.

Chemistry Olympiad

I have had the least experience with this Olympiad, and have not undergone any of the training for this Olympiad. This Olympiad also has 2 rounds, but the special round, unlike the SJPO’s, is a practical round. The first round is MCQ and is held in May. (However, as this is the 1^st year it has been held, I do believe that there may be changes to when and how it will be held.) The questions are also not especially challenging for the first round, but they do require a certain amount of critical thinking. There are also some questions that are knowledge-based: I still vaguely remember the last question which totally stunned us all- who won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 19xx for some discovery I can’t recall. A lot of topics are covered- the usual year 1-4 curriculum (physical chemistry, periodic table, a little quantum chemistry, redox, equilibria, thermodynamics etc.), and organic chemistry as well. The 2^nd round, being a practical round, is much fun. This year, students are grouped in threes (with students from your school), and 5 practicals need to be finished in 3 hours. These include QA, Buffers, Chromatography, and Titration for 2010. There were around 200 awardees (for bronze, silver and gold medals) from around 2000 participants this year. Merit awards are also given.

I did not attend our school’s Chem O training modules, so whatever is included here is based on my classmates’ experiences. The Chem O training begins in Year 4, while some Year 3s may be invited to sit in or take up the training as well. The module in Sem 1 is offered to all, and is a prerequisite for the subsequent module in Sem 2. The curriculum mirrors the modules covered in core chemistry modules, but they are more in-depth and delve into more complex stuff (sometimes university-level stuff). There are also practical lessons as well. However, since SJChO questions are MCQ, in my opinion these training modules are more for the SChO. For those who had entered the practical round this year, special training sessions in the lab were held as well.

Conclusion

There are many Olympiads out there and it doesn’t hurt to take one. (Fees can be deducted from Edusave, so cost should not a big concern.) Hence, let me end this painfully long article (you survived!) right here and now. :) And Happy New Year!

SSEF

Yo everyone, I've been reading this blog for some time now, and under Lay Kuan's influence, I've decided to contribute too. My first post here will be about the Singapore Science and Engineering Fair (SSEF), since it's one of the main highlights of my last year in school. A very memorable experience, got to meet many other research enthusiasts (like Chui Yi, although I didn't know her name back then) and spent quite a long while fidgeting and turning green at my booth (since I was the last group to get gold in my year, so I had to wait for pretty long and despair more and more as other groups were winning).

SSEF is, very roughly speaking, some sort of Olympiad for research. It's far more nebulous, and hence it has been criticised as not really reflective of the quality of the participants' research. This is due to the difficulty in assessing one's project. Much depends on whether the judge specialises in a certain field, whether your presentation is coherent, and whether you seem to be a trustworthy person (yes, they have this tendency to think someone else did the work for you). Nonetheless, these problems are the similar to those faced by researchers, so it's good to learn how to deal with them now. Besides, SSEF is great fun.

There are two parts to SSEF: doing good research (by extension, getting good results), and delivering it properly. This post will concentrate more on the latter.


Report

When writing the report, write the conclusions first. Of course, it's much easier to write in chronological order (writing what you did earlier first, followed by what you did later), but this is not suitable because of the SSEF page limit constraints. This is especially so if you did good research, which means you'll be overflowing with data. Some say you should just write everything down first and trim it down to size, but I found this method too difficult, too time consuming, and too painful (yes. It's like 'argh, I just had to delete a paragraph I spent an hour writing! nooo!').

Instead, I suggest you start with a focused conclusion showing what's your project's contribution to science. This will help to set the flow for the paper, and you will be less likely to include extraneous details into your report. I suggest writing three paragraphs, the first about results which were expected, the third about unexpected results, and the second somewhere in between. It's good to end off with a memorable and impactful statement about the practical application of your unexpected results (very important if you keep getting the 'what are the practical applications of your work?' from your friends/teachers/voices in your head). If you find that your report is still too long, edit the conclusions and try again.

An often overlooked thingy about writing reports (and posters, for that matter) is convention. Follow your own convention. By that I mean always have your title on the same place for all your excel graphs, use the same colour for the same sample when it appears in different graphs, use the same font for axis titles (and so on). Minutiae, I know, but this problem always pops up, especially if you happen to be as careless as I am. Or if it's a group project.


Poster

The backboard (or whatever you call it) the Science Center provides is big enough to fit a poster with dimensions greater than A0. Some people who are really desperate for space do that, but I think it's really awkward to have a non-A0 poster, the non-standard size makes me feel uneasy. More so if everyone nearby is doing A0 (they tend to do that). Any deviations from a single nice A0 poster should be done markedly, so much so that it looks intentionally different, rather than 'oops, I ran out of space and I can' t be bothered to edit it properly'. And at some poster shops, it can be 2 to 3 times more expensive than good ol' A0. The poster should be laminated matt (not glossy, you can't see the words with the light shining on the poster due to reflection). Poster Connection at Sunshine Plaza used to print rather cheaply (and pretty good quality too), but I heard it's more expensive of late.

As with the report, write the conclusions first. It should give you a general idea of how the poster should go. Regarding the exact flow of the poster, it's good to plop all your diagrams, pictures, and schematics on powerpoint first and arrange them such that they make sense. After which, add figure captions and some explanatory text and you have a poster. Like the report (and unlike powerpoint slides), posters are parallel axes of information, so don't repeat diagrams. It's fine to point to other parts of the poster when the need arises.

I recommend putting as many diagrams as possible and as little text as possible. By the time you present at SSEF, you should know your project well enough to say what you need to say to explain your stuff sufficiently well. On the other hand, it's rather clumsy to whip out a pencil and start drawing on the spot. Moreover, it's rather disconcerting when the judge seems to be reading the poster rather than listening to you.

One exception to this rule is to put brief definitions of certain jargon just after your introduction. If the audience can't remember a term you introduced earlier (this happens rather often), he/she can read it from the poster without interrupting you and feeling like an idiot. On top of all these, someone with background in your field should be able to look through your poster and have some idea what you're doing without you making the presentation. Not that the judges will do that and walk off, but well, it's good style.

Once you have a draft which bears some semblance to a poster, print it out on an A4 paper. The font should be big enough that it can be read even when shrunk down to A4. Practice presenting to friends and teachers, regardless of whether they are in your area or not. It is highly likely that you will get judges who are not specialists, so learn how to recognise the various signs of confusion and find methods of explaining your stuff without compromising the beauty of your project. For some projects, it may be useful to build a model to complement the poster presentation. I built one to show a 3D coordinate transformation which I calculated. Much easier to present. Besides, models are memorable.


The Day Itself

Make friends with the people around you (and give them your number). This is a must if yours is a solo project. The judges can come any time from 8am to 5pm, and it's rather difficult to stay at your booth all the time. Sticking a piece of paper which says 'Away, please call ' on your booth (or having it as a ppt slide on your computer, for that matter) doesn't give a particularly good impression. Ask your boothmate to call if you a judge comes. In my case, my first judge came around 3plus, and I was sitting on the floor sleeping (some HCI guys stole my chair. And my boothmate's chair). My boothmate woke me up, very thankfully.

There's no fixed style of judging. So far, I've heard of three.

1) The usual present first, Q&A later, with no time limit.
2) Give a quick summary (my juniors were asked to present in 3min), and then Q&A.
3) The judge comes and just asks questions (my first judge did that).

So be prepared. Also, some naughty judges may request a specific person in a team project to answer a certain question or present a certain part, so do practice everyone's part. One of my juniors even had to present while her teammate was not there (judge demanded it so).

During my year (2009), there were only 3 judges per project. From 2010 onwards, there's 4 to 6 judges per project. It's rather tiring, so think twice before submitting more than one project to SSEF.

Some of the less specific questions which were posed to me

-What was the hardest part of your project?

-How much help did you receive from your mentor?

-What is Faraday's Law of Electromagnetic Induction? (I really got this question)

-How do you convert milliradians to degrees? (This one too, no kidding)

-Are you Singaporean? (Whaaaat?)

Miscellaneous

It's quite nerve wrecking when they're giving out the prizes, so try not to stand in the middle of the crowd or you may get asphxyated. In any case, SSEF is not just about winning, but about getting to know your project and the projects of others in general better. Easier said than done, of course.

If you win any award (and signed up for A*TS during registration), they will call you back for another round. They will select 8 from that round to enter the final round, where the chief judge is some nobel laureate. The final round was especially nerve-wrecking, though that is a story for another day. I will most likely write a short post on A*TS soon.



(Will be updating this post when I remember more)

Olympiad experience

Hello everybody!

There were a series of posts on the NUSHS forum regarding Olympiad experience.. The seniors were just giving advice to juniors on whether the latter should go for Olympiads in light of other things e.g. CCAs, school modules etc.. I'm not gonna do that; I just wanna do a short post on what the experience was like. I am not very good so I am not qualified to give the invaluable advice that Vanessa and Zhong Ming gave last year (check out their post! =))



Singapore Biology Olympiad (SBO)

Training

I have always loved Biology since I was year 1. We started training in Sem 2 of Year 5 (i.e. we get trained for 1 Sem) but for this year's year 5s, I believe they have already started. When the class was first formed, we had to use the theatrette for the first two lessons. But then some people decided that they did not want to have to study a few (7-10) chapters of the Bio textbook every two weeks in order to sit for a 1hr 50 MCQ "practice" (i.e. graded quiz). We subsequently had lessons in a classroom.

We began training for the Practical after our school exams ended. All 20 were trained because there was simply too little time between the Theory and the Practical (3 weeks only) to train only those who made it into the Practical. About a week before the Theory, the SBO committee decided to limit every school such that each school can only send in 10% of their biology-taking cohort (i.e. those who dropped Bio in Year 5 are not counted). Apparently there were overwhelming numbers, because, as I heard, a lot of schools like to send some people for Bio O. So only 14 people got to represent our school. I think that's a sad reality to face. Some people really put in their heart and soul (some more than me) but didn't get to participate in Theory in the end.

In hindsight, I feel that the school training did not prepare us sufficiently for the SBO, except in the Physio area. There was a lot more reading to be done outside of Campbell, like what Vanessa has mentioned. Really hope this year's juniors will be better-prepared!

Gruelling hours at NTU

The test was held at NIE gymnasium. I can't remember the format for sure but it was something like four sections of 50 MCQs, with one 30min break in the middle.

I recall that our school team was quite tensed as we rode the chartered bus from school. Half of us were trying to cram. These people were generally the more motivated ones and those who subsequently made the Practical were cramming, thought the converse is not true.

The competition atmosphere was very tense and the chief invigilator was very strict. We had to put our bags in a separate room; sitting arrangements were fixed; they emphasized again and again that we must put our table numbers on our papers and worst of all: before the test, during the break and after the test, students from a particular school kept repeating the information that they know and compared answers. People were generally competitive, except for this one young man who sat to my right and slept for most of the test.

I was a bit disappointed because we had a lot of "recall" questions, which was different from what Vanessa experienced. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the shiok experience of going through something so intellectually challenging.

Singapore Chemistry Olympiad (SChO)

Training

Training started in year 5 sem 1. I didn't initially make the training class but because some people dropped out, I got pulled in. In Sem 1, we had 40+ people training. By Sem 2, we only had a class of 27. I am still not sure why I hung on. Maybe it is because Mr Murali encouraged me to stop whining and study hard for this SChO. I did the former but not the latter; I just attended all the training sessions.

After the exams, we had the fortune of getting trained by 2009 IChO gold medallist Terry. He is really very familiar with the topics and knew what to expect. Our school also supported us by loaning out 22 Chemistry Cube books to the class. Chem Cube is a power-packed book that condenses Physical, Organic and Inorganic Chem all into one.

High spirits at NUS

The Theory was held across two lecture theatres (LTs) in NUS. The NUS High team was allocated to LT27. Compare this with Bio O: we could sit anywhere in the LT we wanted as long as we put our registration numbers on our paper; we could leave once we were done; we could keep our bags with us as long as we didn't refer to anything from our bags.

The NUS High team was enthusiastic and excited as we rode the public bus from school. We even took a group photo and did a cheer before entering the LT!

Our confidence was reasonably founded. As ZM and Nes alluded to, our school curriculum prepares us sufficiently well for the SChO, though I can't say the same for IChO. The questions were no more difficult than what we encounter in our school exams, except for one question that required us to derive an equation. We didn't get tested on Biochem and solid packing even though we prepared for it. I don't know whether I can tell you the numbers for the medals yet because the school hasn't announced it so I'll just hold it for now ;)

General reflections

As you would have realised as I described the training process, people who take olympiads must have a HUGE DOSE of MOTIVATION. Like ZM mentioned, being good doesn't mean you'll excel in olympiads, though the converse is true. Plus you need a lot of DISCIPLINE to study even though your level mates are already through studying for their school exams and are busy with their ARPs.

Olympiads are definitely a once-in-a-lifetime (unless you're a genius and you start taking them with your seniors) experience and I cherish that. However, two Year 8s mentioned in NUSH google groups that two years down the road, what you remember is not the info you learnt from olympiads, but the insights gained from your ARP/IRPs. I hope that puts things in perspective =)

Arnold Bennett: The real tragedy is the tragedy of the man who never in his life braces himself for his one supreme effort-- he never stretches to his fully capacity, never stands up to his full stature.

Re: Olympiad experience

I have my own two cents about the olympiads. I took biology and chemistry olympiads last year. Was one of three from NUS High to be shortlisted into practical round for bio, ended up with a bronze. For chemistry, got a silver eventually, and went for IChO phase 1 training.

Biology

Since 2008 there has been a new syllabus. It is now 2 hours of 200 MCQ - they are given in four sets of 50 per half hour. Yes, you have to finish 50 questions in 30 minutes... x 4. It's sort of like SATs, you cannot go on to the next section even if you've already finished the previous section.

Also, it is true that we NUS High students are weaker at the molecular biology perspective. Last year when I took the SBO theory paper, I found that I could answer most of the questions about classical biology, but the section on biochemistry/cell biology completely stumped me. There are questions that ask stuff you don't even learn about in University Year 1 (having taken NUS Year 1 bio modules I think I am qualified to say this).

SBO, as Zhongming has said, really does involve a good grasp of biology as a whole. If you only memorise the Campbell and Reece textbook, you'll be able to answer maybe 30% of the questions only. The other 70% comes from application and experimental design.

For those currently taking the bio olympiad module, I scored an average of 38/50 for the quizzes/tests and I got a bronze in the end, which should give you an idea of what you should be aiming for. Of course the bronze is also affected by my performance in the practicals (which I personally think was average so-so only) – so perform better, your practical score may be able to push you to a silver.

Practical – just hope you've done the experiments before. They are quite basic but some of the questions are tricky. Some things like dissection of seeds, I haven't done before. Also weird questions involving coefficient of inbreeding, usage of dichotomous keys to classify organisms. I think it requires you to be able to think on your feet and quickly absorb whatever information is given to you, and answer the questions based on what details you are given and the basic concepts you already know. Most of the practical specimens will have funny body parts you've never heard of before, or protocols you've never done, or methods of analysis you have never experienced. The only thing that was familiar to me was identifying mutations of Drosophila.

The practical round, fyi, involved 4 labs. Each lab was 1.5 hours long with 2-5 activities per lab. You will need to work fast and be able to handle simultaneous experiments. I wrote a document listing all the details of the 2008 practical round and gave it to Dr Tang, so ask him if you wanna see what we had to do last year.

A point to note is that for the quizzes, honestly I didn't study at all, unlike some of my peers. I've been making notes for each module so far, so before the quiz, I'd read through my notes on the topic, and then just go and do. Same for the actual SBO (I regret not studying more; might have gotten a silver if I'd worked for it). Which means if you have been actively studying bio, and take the time and effort to actually revise the textbook, you'll probably do better.

Some stats on absolute scoring for SBO. I was talking to an ex-classmate who represented Singapore in IBO this year, and from what she says, it seems as though the threshold for gold is 50%. I'm not sure about silver and bronze - my bet is on 40% and 30% but it may well be 45% and 40% too. Yes it seems easy, you just need to pass to get a gold, but keep in mind that Singapore has performed best in Biology for the international olympiads so far (students always come back with at least a silver), and that shows something about our local SBO standards.

In the 2008 SBO there were 2 golds, 3 silvers and 6 bronzes :) nice, huh. The students that went on to IBO were the four best, and they came back with 3 golds and 1 silver. Also, two of the gold medallists got 1st and 3rd individual overall; the other gold medallist was 14th. In the world.


Chemistry

As said earlier Singapore does pretty well for IChO but not as well as IBO. For studying chemistry, I think as long as you're familiar with the NUS High syllabus, it will pull you through SChO at least. Be very grounded in physical chem, and just pray very hard that you know how to answer the inorganic chem questions – there is NO WAY you can memorise all you need for inorganic chem, it's really your luck. Our school syllabus for organic chem is more than enough for SChO even if you didn't take the advanced module.

For the practical, take note of what they're testing you, because they'll test the exact opposite for the IChO selection test.

The whole SChO team from NUS High last year obtained medals with all those going into the practical round obtaining at least a silver. So it shouldn't be too difficult.

IChO phase 1 training: Every wednesday in NUS for about seven weeks or so, then two full days during the March holidays at NIE, then they test you.

The IChO selection test was a complete disaster for me. The lecturers that crash course you don't actually teach you anything at all; you should read up on the topics yourself. The content is also further than the school syllabus, ESPECIALLY FOR ORGANIC CHEMISTRY and SPECTROSCOPY. If you have the book Organic Chemistry by Clayden, Greeves, Warren and Wothers, it will really help you. Looking up concepts in Physical Chemistry by Atkins is also good. Last but not least, it will be very useful if you've had experience in multi-spectra analysis (i.e. MS, IR, UV and NMR) - you need to be able to interpret spectra quickly.

And yes, it is 9 problems in 3 hours – you need to work fast and be very good at the concepts they teach. The instructors tend to set the selection test harder than the IChO preparatory problems given (for example, I couldn't do the steady-state approximation problems in the selection test but I could easily do all those in the prep problems).

IChO selection test also has biochemistry, so if you take bio it is really to your advantage (I had a much easier time compared to some of my physics/chem peers for the biochem section). Taking LSM1101 in NUS was also a huge help. Michaelis-Menten kinetics applied to transformations of Lineweaver-Burke plots, properties of zwitterions, the chemistry of catalytic sites – they are all tested. Not to mention simple biochemistry in the advanced organic chem module, such as structure of proteins, sugars, Haworth and Fischer projection, etc.

The physical chem should not be a problem for anyone in NUS High who has been getting As for the phys chem modules.

Okay that's all I have to say.

Olympiad experience

As many people are busy preparing themselves for the [science/math] olympiads, I hope I can share a bit of my experience at how the teams are chosen.

The science olympiads are supposedly, difficult to do. Which is why they are called olympiads. They are also very long exams, usually 5 hours (twice somemore!). Not being able to do the olympiads doesn't mean you're lousy. It is often a misconception that being good at a subject means being able to do olympiad. While being able to qualify for the olympiads means you're good, the converse doesn't apply. The olympiad problems test more for creativity than for rigour.

Singapore teams at the olympiads have been doing pretty well these few years, and much credit has to go on to the team of trainers who train the national team every year. I'll spend some time explaining a bit more of each olympiad, but because I've had more experience in the physics one, I'm going to be a little bit more biased and perhaps talk a bit more about physics.

Mathematics

The oldest olympiad, the International Mathematics Olympiad (IMO) is also the biggest by far. 503 partipiants in the most recent one (in Germany). It's also the hardest (widely agreed on)! Till now, Singapore has obtained only 1 gold medal since its first participation in 1988. While the syllabus says no university stuff (aka no calculus, solid geometry, and complex numbers), you need to know all those cheem (because I'm really not good at them) number theory, inequalities and etc. Singapore's selection usually starts with the Singapore Mathematical Olympiad (SMO), which is split into junior, senior and open. The team is usually chosen from the winners of the Open team, while the winners of the junior and senior sections go through national team training and they can possibly make it to the national team (which they did this year, one sec 2 and one sec 4). It is one of the 2 olympiads that you can represent Singapore at any age, with the other being IOI.

The IMO itself consists of 2 days of 4.5 hours of papers, each having 3 problems. The first day's first problem is usually the easiest question (which is still not easy), while the second day's last problem is usually the hardest problem. The number of medallists are quite little, as the competition tries to cap it with a gold: silver: bronze ratio of 1:2:3, and about around half of all of the total participants will get a medal. So, it really is the most difficult olympiad.

Note: I know that many students who come to NUS High start by loving mathematics, with many winning awards at all the primary mathematical olympiads (NMOS, SPMO, etc.). It's a good aspiration, but maybe you can start loving the other subjects too! SMO is not easy. Math is not easy, and the school curriculum doesn't prepare for the olympiad syllabus, which is often more abstract. Although there's school olympiad training, it's often targeted at only the relevant level (like if you're in junior, you train for junior). Not a lot of progress can be made. (I may be wrong given that there seems to be changes to the olympiad training syllabus. Can someone who knows inform me?)

Oh yes, you can get the past year SMO questions from the school library in books. Questions from the olympiads of other countries can be found online.

IMO 2010: Kazakhstan (Astana)

IMO 2011: Netherlands (Amsterdam)

Informatics

The most non-'science' of the lot. The IOI is often neglected when Singaporeans think about olympiads. I too don't know much about the contest, except that Singapore does send its team of 4 every year! Selection is through the National Olympiad in Informatics (NOI), and the question tests students abilities to creatively think of solution to problems and coding them out. Thus, the code's a tool and not the main point of the olympiad. More information can be found: http://www.comp.nus.edu.sg/~noi/index.html. For our school, only those from the Infocomm club joins, since the basic requirement in this competition is knowledge of computer programming (think C++, javascript, pascal, etc.)

IOI 2010: Canada (Waterloo)

IOI 2011: Thailand (Bangkok)

Biology

[edit] Vanessa has an update about the new SBO format in her post![/edit]

The youngest olympiad of the lot. The International Biology Olympiad (IBO) tests students on first year university biology. Essential text here is Biology 8e by Neil A. Campbell and Jane B. Reece, which is a school textbook (yay! right?) NUS High students tend to be better at the classical biology (ecology, physiology, evolution, biodiversity) and weaker at the molecular and cellular biology (genetics, biochemistry, cell biology) aspect. For the syllabus, what I've heard is that you need to know the Campbell text from first to last, and have very good grasp of the feel of biology. Singapore Biology Olympiad (SBO) consists of 2 rounds, one theory, where there is 5 hours of 250 MCQ, and the second practical, only for the selected students. Awards given out are based on absolute score, and not relative ranking. Only JC1 students can participate. The school will have to choose a team of students to take part. Training for our school starts in Yr 5 semester 2, and I heard it's always quiz time every period ):

The IBO has a similar format as SBO, so I won't elaborate much. The selection process is that the top winners of SBO (usually only about 6 students) will be shortlisted for national team training, once per week, until May, where there's one week camp and selection test. The final team consists of 4 main competitiors + 2 reserves. Then they go for intensive training everyday starting from the june holidays all the way till the olympiad.

SBO/IBO questions are not released to students, but they're all application-based questions of biology.

IBO 2010: Korea (changwon)

IBO 2011: Taiwan (Taipei)

IBO 2012: Singapore

Chemistry

The Singapore team usually does quite well on the International Chemistry Olympiad (IChO). The IChO syllabus spans the entire NUS High syllabus (except biochemistry), and the school does provide a very strong foundation (at least in my time). So you don't actually have to study that much more content. Creative applications of chemistry concepts is the most important actually. Some reference books that I find good are: Physical Chemistry by Peter Atkins, Organic Chemistry by Janice Gorzynski Smith, Analytical chemistry, though I don't really have suggestions for inorganic chemistry, spectroscopy and analytical chemistry. Singapore Chemistry Olympiad (SChO) consists of 2 rounds, one theory and one practical. In the theory round, the school sends a team of 15-20 students JC1 to sit for a theory test at NUS in November that is 4 hours long. The top ~60 students are then selected to take the practical exams. For the practical round, the questions can start from titration, to analytic analysis, physical chemistry, gas measurements, inorganic and organic synthesis, and qualitative analysis. Medals are given out based on the composite scores of theory and practical, and the medal distribution is relative, meaning that a certain percentage will get gold, silver, bronze, or Honorable Mention.

The IChO is similar, except that they are 5 hours long each with more difficult problems, with 9 theory questions, and 2-3 experiment tasks. National team training will commence in the following February with 20 odd students. Only Singaporeans can take part in this training (sorry, no PRs!). It's conducted every wednesday afternoon with various JC teachers and university lecturers coming in to crash-course the team on some higher level concepts. Selection test is in April, where the theory test is always a killer---the last I heard was 3 hours to finish 9 difficult problems. The practical test is usually taken from a NUS year 1 chemistry module, so ahem, it may be good if you can take them. After the team is chosen, with 4 main + 2 reserve, the team trains sporadically, with one week of camp. And off they go for IChO!

I really think that the IChO selection is the most competitive one. Everyone is very good to start with.

IChO 2010: Japan (Tokyo)

IChO 2011: Turkey (Ankara)

IChO 2012: USA (Washington DC)

IChO 2013: Singapore (tentative)

Physics

The International Physics Olympiad (IPhO) is probably the one the students know the most about. It perhaps is also the best olympiad in the school (considering medal count). The syllabus is supposedly high school physics, but it requires some applications of calculus (and sometimes advanced math and physics concepts). All the 'necessary' concepts can be found in the textbook the physics honors students use, University Physics 12e by Young and Freedman. However, there're many difficult tricks to learn just as in other olympiads. Singapore Physics Olympiad (SPhO) is held in November for JC1 students, and around 15-20 students per school can participate. They will first take the theory test of 4 hours. The top 40+ will then make it to the practical round, which will consist of a simple experiment of around 2 hours. Medals are decided by relative scores.

From there, the national training team is formed with slightly less than 20 students (PRs can join for this olympiad), and training is held every wednesday afternoon. You can see that this clashes with the chemistry training sessions, as MOE put it on purpose so as to force you to choose one olympiad, since attendance is a potential selection factor if selection test scores are the same. JC trainers will come in to train, and there's training every day during the march holidays. Training will usually go like 2 x mechanics, 2 x e&m, 2 x waves and oscillation, 2 x thermodynamics, 2 x optics, 1 x special relativity, n x random topics. I don't think the training is very useful for NUS High students because the training is meant to let some students from other schools catch-up (those who have not already covered some of the topics). Should note that all those who have made it into the national team is good, not just NUS High students. End march there will be a selection test, of only theory (I heard it may be changed to theory + prac), and 8 will be chosen to take part in the Asian Physics Olympiad (APhO), either held end April or early May. The APhO consists of a 5 hour theory test, and a 5 hour practical test. Because of its difficulty, Singapore doesn't do too well in this. APhO also serves as a training ground to sieve out the top 5 who will represent Singapore for the IPhO.

The national team will train from the start of their June holidays all the way till the olympiad starts. And then they fly! Medals for the IPhO are I think easier to get than the other olympiads as they don't go by a relative score, but by an absolute score which you can hit after moderation.

IPhO 2010: Croatia (Zagrab)

IPhO 2011: Belgium

IPhO 2012: Estonia

Olympiad Experience

After boring you so long about how the olympiad teams are chosen, let me talk about the experience! The olympiads are really very fun because 1) you get a fully paid holiday 2) meet people all over the world 3) do the most unique paper in the world. After sitting for 2 days of exams, you get to visit all the famous sites of a country and play, while your classmates slog it out in class (oops). I think the meeting people all over the world part is the most exciting. For me, when I went to Mexico this year for the IPhO, it was an eye-opener, for it is the first time I've taken a flight of more than 20 hours, seen Aurora Borealis (on the plane back above Greenland), and travelled to Mexico, especially during the H1N1 period. Once you reach there, the hospitality of the host country is very good, and you can expect to be eating a lot everyday, and playing a lot too. There's the opening and closing ceremonies where I really saw the host country's culture, and its also when I wore the red blazer for the first time. Despite the stress, have fun!

When I travelled there, the team travelled with 2 leaders and 3 observers (inclu. of one MOE official). They are there to vet and translate the papers into Singlish, and then help you moderate your marks up. And they are very nice people, because they really fight for your marks and your medal colours.

Inevitably, the olympiads can only choose that many people. Statistically, anybody's chance is low. But I've told many people that you are not a statistic, you are an event, so it's either you get in (100%) or you don't (0%), so just go chase that dream!

Cheers,

Zhong Ming

PS. Fiona and Gregory both took part in the IChO, so they can share their experiences too!