UK Chemistry Olympiad 2015
Examiners’ Report, Round 1, 2015
The members of the RSC Olympiad Working Group would like to thank teachers for their
hard work supporting students and the Royal Society of Chemistry to run Round 1 of the
competition. The members of the working group were pleased to receive letters and emails
from teachers about the administration, content and demand of the Round 1 paper and have
taken on board this welcome feedback.
We were delighted to see another significant increase in participation in 2015. This year,
6630 students’ marks were entered into the online score submission system, which
represents a 17% increase from entries in the 2014 competition. There were a number of
excellent entries from Lower 6th Students and it would be hoped that these students would
be strongly encouraged to enter the C3L6 written paper later in the summer.
We were especially pleased to see that 137 schools had participated for the first time. The
Royal Society of Chemistry will, as usual, be awarding the INEOS prize to the best
performing new state school – the student who achieves the highest mark from an eligible
school (not entered more than once in the past five years) has won £1000 for their school
chemistry department to spend on enhanced equipment or materials to help promote
chemistry. In addition prizes are awarded to the top performing student in the competition,
who achieved a score of 74/75. The top scoring Lower 6th chemist is also awarded a prize. It
was noted that many of the top scoring students had previously participated in the C3L6
Lower 6th written paper and it was pleasing to see that they have continued to participate in
chemistry competitions.
Whilst the paper has always been written with upper sixth form students in mind, we
encourage ambitious lower sixth form students to enter if they have been able to cover the
required topics in their independent study.
Question 1
The examiners felt that this was a fairly straightforward opening question. There were some
trivial errors with students not able to apply their understanding of valence and also using the
incorrect chemical symbol for indium, which gave rise to incorrect formulae. Less
mathematical students seem to find part b) more challenging but parts c) and d) were
generally well answered and many students seemed to have a good understanding of unit
cells. Again most students made good attempts at parts e) and f) and it was pleasing to see
what many wrote out the full balanced equation for part f) although this was not needed for
the mark to be awarded.
Question 2
Part a) was generally very well answered. It was noted that part b) only the very best
students scored full marks. The best students spotted 4 isomers but very few appreciated
that there were different enantiomers. Part c) was well answered provided that students
considered the valency of carbon. Even some of the top students failed to appreciate that
the transition energy was required EJ=39 - EJ=38, and there were a number of careless
mistakes with units.
Question 3
It was noted that students who attempted to draw the structures of the intermediates often
scored some marks, and that some students approached the question by working
backwards from the final product which was pleasing as organic synthesis questions used in
Round 1 are designed to give students a variety of access points into the question. The
higher ability students were able to deduce the functional groups and assigned the IR
frequencies correctly from information given in the question.
Question 4
This question asked students to apply Michaelis-Menten kinetics (a 2nd year university topic)
in a reasonably accessible way to one of the more prevalent examples of zero order
behaviour. Part a) was generally well answered by most students who recognised that NAD+
had been reduced. There was a good attempt at part b) by many students although part c)
onwards was often only tackled by the most able students. It was noted that even among the
top performing candidates, many thought that the reaction was 1st order in part d) but went
on to use the zero order expression later in the question. Many of the correct answers for the
calculations fell into the acceptable range as indicated on the mark scheme. Many
candidates were able to score marks for part f) despite not getting part d) correct. There
were many interesting spellings noted for the compound in h) and it was noted that H2O2
was often suggested by students, despite it not containing any carbon atoms. Part i) was
generally answered well, although students often ticked contradictory statements.
Question 5
It was noted that some students were unable to finish the question paper due to the
pressures of the time allowed, however, those students who did attempt this question scored
well on parts a), b) and e). A number of students were not able to cope with the concept of δ
in parts c) and d) and δ/2 often appeared in incorrect answers. Those students who did
attempt f) - h) often achieved very good marks, sometimes consequentially.
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