RSC Chemistry Olympiad
Posted on: March 15th 2022School News
Congratulations to our MGS year 12 and 13 pupils who participated in the Chemistry Olympiad this year and were successful in being awarded Silver and Gold Certificates.
Year 12 pupils Roy H, Benjamin M and Year 13 pupils Adil J were all awarded Silver Certificates and year 13 pupil Alexander B achieved a Gold Certificate. These were wonderful results, given that there were nearly 9,000 entries this year, and only 8.9% of entrants were awarded Gold.
Roy commented about his preparation for the competition, saying: “I started a month early, firstly to condense all the GCSE and AS knowledge, making sure that I knew everything thoroughly. Then, I started with past paper question on the RSC website, doing a set of paper every week and building a file on different types of questions”.
Roy added: “Doing chemistry Olympiad at year 12 is definitely a great challenge and a lot of hard work, however I do believe it’s worth preparing for, since it not only help with condensing the knowledge I have learnt so far, but also motivates me to do some forward learning and enhancing outside knowledge. It can even contribute to future university applications or a future CV”.
Benjamin M thoroughly enjoyed taking part in this experience, saying: “I treated it as a chance to learn about some more difficult and more interesting chemistry, and to challenge myself with some tough questions. As I already read widely into chemistry, my main focus before the Olympiad was ‘catching up’ on topics which I would have covered by this point in Y13, e.g. spectroscopic analysis techniques, and harder organic chemistry, some of which I encountered in the challenge, as well as completing past papers from the Royal Society of Chemistry website. I am proud of my Silver Award, and I think that this opportunity has helped me to gain an even greater enjoyment and understanding of chemistry”.
Alex B looked ahead to his academic future, saying: “The chemistry Olympiad was particularly enjoyable as I am hoping to study chemistry at university so it was interesting to see some questions looking at more advanced applications of the material we study in class”.
This is an annual opportunity for budding young chemists to develop their critical problem-solving skills, to learn to think more creatively and to even get a chance to test their knowledge in new, real-world situations.
On this year’s paper, many timely scientific contexts were covered. The first question was based on E10 petrol, a grade of petrol which contains up to 10% renewable ethanol (a biofuel). Retailers transferred their stocks to E10 petrol during the petrol shortage in October 2021, so this was a very relevant topic. Other questions covered the quantitative chemistry in lateral flow tests, and explored a technique which allows vaccines to be stored at room temperature. Students also answered questions about the world’s smallest Chinese knot, cubane and nitrous oxide.
Well done to our MGS Chemists for rising to the challenge!
