difficulty level of pre-IPhO exams in india.

n10Newton

my basics and concepts in physics are relatively the best among my classmates but i have not done expected amount of problems that require IPhO. i am from india and first level NSEP is on 25 november 2012 so i have about 100 days for problem practice. I have collected the following books - 1.sears and zymnasky university physics, 2.resnick halliday FOP, 3.serway jewet Physics for scientist and engineers ,4.jacson's classic electrodynamics, 5.Feynman lectures on physics, 6.I E Irodov problems in general physics, 7.S S Krotov problem in physics
and following question sets of olympiad - 1.asian physics olympiad, 2.international physics olympiad, 3.indian national physics olympiad , 4.canadian POPTOR series and national olympiads of britain, USA, canada and australia.
but till today i have done only textbook excercise and H C Verma concepts of Physics. Please suggest which book and question sets are of same difficulty level as NSEP in india so i solve those before NSEP and the rest after that.Thanks in advace. Congratulations to all Gold Medalist of IPhO 2012.

mishrashubham

The first stage is pretty easy (AIEEE level) although remember that it covers the complete syllabus of both class 11 and 12. The second level might give you some trouble although I suppose you have a chance if you can easily solve problems from Irodov's and Krotov's books. I can't say anything about the international paper.

Pranav-Arora

Phew! If its of AIEEE level, i may get through the first stage.

simpy

First stage of physics olympiad in India is a mix of both good and easy questions. Objective type questions are quite easy for the person who has taken IIT JEE's coaching and some are formula based but that formula , you cannot find in NCERT books. More than one questions are 10 and appear easy (and actually are) if you have good command over problems and theory . and then come subjective questions which can be quite tricky and can also be of old iit subjective questions. As for aieee type questions, indeed there are some but doing them only cannot assure you to crack 1st level And as for books, HC Verma is a good choice ( for aieee type , theory related, and a few formula related questions) Buit there is no need to go for feynman lectures for it now ( believe me) . However Irodov can be quite useful.
Well, looking at the previous level and questions from past exams of first level , I would strongly recommend you to focus mainly on mechanics, fluid mechanics, elasticity and viscosity ,SHM, Waves , and electrostatics. For more practive, and to have a better idea about the difficulty of exam start solving past years' papers. past year paper and answer4 key is below:http://aryanclasses.com/NSE/INO-2012...-questions.pdf and ak http://aryanclasses.com/NSE/INO-2012...-solutions.pdf

sambarbarian

hey , i am from India , class 10th and saw the advert in the newspaper . I was thinking of applying for NSEP ,but i fear that my knowledge might not be enough.Can i a 15 year old guy crack this ,or should i wait a few years ? I am enrolled in FIITJEE and can say that my physics is quite good :)

n10Newton

at sambarbarian , just prepare well. usually no one write NSEP in 10 grade. wait for a year. write it in 11th grade. one more advantage of writing it in 11th is ,in asian physics olympiad students of 11th grade get periority.

snorkack

Actually, I´m curious about how many levels you have to go through.

All countries have 5 places in the IPhO, avout July - regardless of population. This is the same for China with over 1,3 milliard people, India with over 1,2 milliard people, and my country with under 1,3 million.

In my country, there are 3 stages of olympiad:
1st stage is held in schools, November-December
2nd stage is county level. Usually some Saturday in January. Normally the contest committee who does the marking consists of the physics teachers of the schools of the county.
3rd stage is the national olympiad, Normally in March. The contest committee is from university.
Then there are 10...20 better students selected for study sessions, like 2 sessions of a week each. Followed by contest among themselves and a final selection of the team of 5.

How does India select their 5 team members out of their whole school population?

mishrashubham

Hi snorkack. Yes we in India follow pretty much the same procedure.

snorkack

How?

In my country, with slightly over 200 high schools, the 15 counties are reasonable for 3 levels of olympiad (school, county, national).

How many high schools exist in India?

n10Newton

In India there are 200+ School Boards and very few are Recognised Internationally so Advance Placements and Olympiads Medals are Required to take admission in US universities. And this is the reason why all senior year high school students go for olympiad and due to low selection ratio stages are more than 3.

mishrashubham

Oops my mistake. I read county to be country. First we have the Regional level selection (we have 29 states and a certain number of students are selected from each in proportion to the population of that state). The total number of people selected for Level 2 is around 300. Then there is a national level selection and 35 are further selected. Then there is a training camp for these 35 and one more exam which includes theory and practicals, by which the final international team is decided.

As for the number of schools, I don't know, but I'm pretty sure the figure would be something in hundreds of thousands or may be more. But the number of schools participating in the olympiads would be less than that.

snorkack

But the States are themselves huge!

The population of Uttar Pradesh is 200 millions, Maharashtra 112 millions, Bihar 104 millions.

This means about 1 participant of the national level Olympiad per 4 million population... How is the Uttar Pradesh or Bihar team selected for the national olympiad? And how do students get so far as to get considered on the State level?

mishrashubham

Yes since we have so many people, the competition is pretty tough. But I don't think it's that much since not all science students in the country give the olympiads.

For the first stage we just have one national paper i.e. the paper is the same all over the country and from which a total of about 300 are selected but in proportion to the state's population for example, Maharashtra gets 65 people while Andaman and Nicobar islands have only one student.

snorkack

Which is out of proportion - in proportion would be about 1 per 4 millions, whish is for Maharashtra 28, and for Bihar 26.

But how many people sit that state-level paper in, for example, Maharashtra (where 65 get to the 300 of national olympiad)?

n10Newton

About 3 to 5 lakhs Appears in First Test(National Qualifier) held on November, 300 and some more where marks are same and others who appeared any International Olympiad or Before are Welcomed to 2nd stage (Quaterfinals) held January Last or February First Week, 35 Students Selected and go to Semifinal camp in Apr-May. after that 5 Selected.

only 3 students from Bihar were selected in First test.(Indian system take view on application not population 1000 application then 1)

snorkack

Ah, thanks.

So a single stage to select 300 out of 3 to 5 lakhs. Just 1 out of 1000 or 1700 gets ahead.

How did you fare at the Olympiad?

n10Newton

Also in India Physics Olympiad is just a joke, just an Exam. because no one going to take Undergraduate in Physics.