NEW: Recorded Season 1 is available!

All recorded live sessions, problem sets with detailed answer keys, and the season test for Season 1 are also available for students who want to enhance understanding on atomic structures/periodicity, molecular structures/bonding, IMFs/phase changes/gases/solids. Please email Dr. Chen if you are interested.

Info Session on Chemistry Olympiad

There will be an info session at 8-9 pm on Sunday ET (Sep 20) to introduce chemistry competitions from around the world (mainly focus on USNCO), their respective preparation strategies, and some more detailed information about the online class. The session begins with a 15 minute introductory presentation on the path to USNCO, the scope and difficulty of the tests, and the recommended preparation strategies. This presentation will be followed by a guided 10-20 minute Q&A session where the students can ask Dr. Chen questions.

Recorded video is shown below!

My student Yutong Dai won a gold medal in the 2018 (50th) International Chemistry Olympiad (IChO) held at Slovakia and Czech Republic. Congratulations to Yutong, and the US team to win four gold medals this year. China, which won the top scoring gold medal, was the only other country to win four golds this year.

Decoding of Chemistry Olympiad is a website created by Dr. Chen, an experienced chemistry competition coach. It is believed that high-quality education resources is worthy of being shared with more students. Therefore, the goal of the website is to help students prepare different levels of chemistry competitions by offering test analysis, self-evaluation, self-study plan suggestion, etc.

The answer annotation of tests and the learning objectives of the US National Chemistry Olympiad (both local and national exams) are analyzed in depth and in detail. The other resources like the recommended textbooks, other countries' Chemistry Olympiads are also included for students to prepare higher level challenge like the study camp and International Chemistry Olympiad. An on-line test system is proposed for students to have a self-evaluation about their strength and weakness. After the self-evaluation, appropriate level of practice problems will be recommended to students for further improvement.

Preparation strategy before the local exam

• 1. Practice the recently 3-10 years of local exam test papers from the old one to the new one. Record the time you use to finish the whole test and do the self-grading, and classify your questions into three categories: a) questions you get correct but actually unsure; b) questions you make it wrong due to careless mistake and questions you make it wrong but you easily get it by reading textbook and/or searching from the internet ; c) questions you still don't know and/or understand after you try your best;

  2. Discuss with your classmates/teachers or check the Annotation&Analysis from this website to find the answers of the category a) and c) if available, you can also email me your questions list if you can't get help from the others, I will try my best to reply your email;

  3. Check the Learning Objective of this website to summarize your strength and weakness;

  4. Find more similar problems from the Learning Objective and the corresponding problem sets to improve your weakness;

  5. [optional but strongly recommended] try 1-3 recent years of national exam - part I to test your improvement;

  6. Take the local exam with ample preparation and great confidence and be ready to cheer!

  7. Hopefully, challenge yourself in the national exam!