Prepare for National Physics Olympiad in India: Tips for High School Students

[Ujjwal Basumatary]

I am a new member here and decided to join Physics Forums to get help to prepare for Physics Olympiads. I am a high school sophomore. Going to be a junior soon. I have taken advanced Math classes via MIT OCW and the internet. I am also proficient with Mechanics, but nothing international Olympiad-level. Please suggest some decent material and books so that I can prepare for my country's (India) national Physics Olympiad (known as the INPhO). I know enough Math equivalent to standard Calculus 1 and 2 courses.

P.S. Also suggest methods of preparing efficiently, please. Thank you.

 

[Janosh89]

Welcome to PF, Ujjwal Basumatary

 

[berkeman]

I am a new member here and decided to join Physics Forums to get help to prepare for Physics Olympiads. I am a high school sophomore. Going to be a junior soon. I have taken advanced Math classes via MIT OCW and the internet. I am also proficient with Mechanics, but nothing international Olympiad-level. Please suggest some decent material and books so that I can prepare for my country's (India) national Physics Olympiad (known as the INPhO). I know enough Math equivalent to standard Calculus 1 and 2 courses.

P.S. Also suggest methods of preparing efficiently, please. Thank you.

Welcome to the PF.

Please have a look at the "Similar Discussions" threads listed at the bottom of the page. That should give you some good initial ideas. Then you can do a further forum search to find all of the previous threads discussing this subject.

Enjoy the PF, and best of luck at the Olympiad!

 

[paralleltransport]

How to be good at physics olympiads, and physics in general starts with applying your knowledge, in other words doing a lot of problems. Here are some books I used for that:

1. Irodov Problems In General Physics.
2. Past IPhO exam papers (all are online).
3. USAPhO papers (on the USAPhO website), F=ma exams there are a good beginning.
4. Physics Coaching Class Series, Problems and Solutions on Mechanics: Major American Universities PhD Questions...
5. Princeton Problems in Physics with solutions.
6. Other PhD Quals problems

Many of 4-5-6 is overkill for IPhO, but they have a lot of problems that can be solved with high school physics+ solid calculus/diffEQ knowledge.

For the theory part, here are some books with increasing level of sophistication
1. Halliday Resnick.
2. Kleppner & Kolenkow.
3. David Morin Introduction to Classical Mechanics.
4. Griffiths E&M.

 

[Ujjwal Basumatary]

I have started with University Physics by Young and Freedman to refresh my basics. Can I directly take on Irodov and Krotov after being done with the theory from University Physics? I can do the easier 'algebraic' problems without effort but I am still trying to decide about the calculus-intensive parts.