2/28/2019 I want to win a gold medal at the IPhO. What can I do to improve my theory?

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International Physics Olympiad (IPhO) +11

I want to win a gold medal at the IPhO. What can I do

to improve my theory? What are the best problem
books for improving my theory skills?
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4 Answers

Elvinas Ribinskas, Gold medalist at the IPhO 2016

Answered Dec 20, 2017 · Upvoted by Vladimir Novakovski, IPhO 2001 silver medal
More Related Questions
This answer is based on what I solved/did not solve when preparing for Physics
Olympiads and what worked for me. It is very probable that some problem
collections, which were helpful to me, are going to be unhelpful for someone
else. Therefore, you should try hard to notice what kind of problems are the
most useful in YOUR preparation. I am focusing only on problem solving, since
this is the most important aspect in preparation for the theoretical part of the
IPhO.

The answer depends a lot on the level you are currently in, so I am going to
assume you have enough knowledge to solve most of the problems of your
National Physics Olympiad. If not, you should familiarise yourself with the
National Olympiad, since this will be a starting point for further preparation.

GOAL

Your main objective has to be able to score 8.5/10 points (on average) for an
average difficulty IPhO problem. To be honest, you can get away with lower
percentage of points, but in real Olympiad students usually perform worse than
during practice at home (due to long flight, lack of sleep, stress, etc.).

So, the main problem collection for preparation is still past IPhO problems:
Problems and Solutions ; IPhO2015 ; IPhO2016 ; IPhO2017 . You have to get
used to style of the competition, length of the problems, and to observe what is
the range of difficulties of the problems.

Furthermore, familiarise yourself with the Syllabus .

(relatively) EASY PART

Another well-known collection is „200 Puzzling Physics Problems“ by P.

Gnadig et. al., which does not teach many mathematical tricks, but is very
helpful for learning new physical ideas.

Furthermore, USAPhO is one of few National Olympiads the problems of which

are accessible online: 2018 U.S. Physics Team . To my knowledge, these are not
the final problems of US team selection and thus are easier than IPhO.

HARD PART

https://www.quora.com/I-want-to-win-a-gold-medal-at-the-IPhO-What-can-I-do-to-improve-my-theory-What-are-the-best-problem-books-for-impro… 1/5
2/28/2019 I want to win a gold medal at the IPhO. What can I do to improve my theory? What are the best problem books for improving my the…
1 to solve most of the problems above and their National
If someone manages
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Olympiad problems, remembers the main ideas, and performs well enough in
the experiment, they could hope to win bronze, or even silver. However, in order
to win gold, much more problems are waiting to be solved.

1. Asian Physics Olympiad (APhO): APhO -Past APhO Problems and

Solutions This competition is hard, i.e. some of its problems are way
more difficult than average IPhO problems. However, if gold medal is
your goal, it is useful to at least read and try understanding the
solutions of harder problems.

2. Study guides for IPhO: https://www.ioc.ee/~kalda/ipho/ by Prof.

Jaan Kalda. I cannot emphasize enough how useful they were in my
preparation. Theory is provided together with related ideas and
examples how we can apply those problem-solving ideas. The range of
problem difficulties is from National Olympiad level up to hardest IPhO
problem level. I especially recommend to go through Electrical circuits
and Mechanics. You will not regret.

3. Estonian-Finnish (currently, Northern Baltic) Physics Olympiad

problems: https://www.ioc.ee/~kalda/ipho/E... . Style is completely
different from IPhO of APhO, so they aren’t useful for pre-IPhO practice.
However, just like „200 Puzzling …“, these problems teach a lot of new
ideas.

4. Romanian Master in Physics: Romanian Master of Physics 2017 . If

you need even more problems, this competition can be helpful. I found
some of the problems useless in IPhO preparation, but there are still a
few good ones out there.

5. Savchenko’s „Zadachi po fizike“. This can be a very useful book,

although I did not spend much time on it. However, there are a few
disadvantages: it does not have solutions and I doubt if it is available in
English. I would not recommend solving everything, so just have a look
at starred questions and choose the most interesting ones.

A FEW WORDS ON I. IRODOV’S „PROBLEMS IN GENERAL PHYSICS“

This exceptionally large problem collection is recommended by many and I

agree that you can learn a lot from those problems. However, when the number
of problems is so large, it is hard to see which ones are useful. Also, their style
differs from IPhO problem style, so these problems won’t help to get used to
IPhO-style problems. Therefore, I would say that this book can help, but it is not
necessary to solve from here (personally, I have solved only 10–20 out of ≈2000
problems).

MORE PROBLEMS?

The list above is long enough to have lots and lots of practice in problem solving.
If you want more, here it is. These are for those who would like to aim at a very
high (say, 28/30 or more) score in theory, or even Best Theoretical special prize.
At this level, you should just solve everything, even if Physics required to solve
the problem is not in the IPhO syllabus. To my mind, the main criterion when
choosing what to solve should be the difficulty of mathematics required. If you
need much more maths than it is in the Syllabus, then skip it.

Not many students know that there is a new book „200 More Puzzling Physics
Problems“ by Gyula Honyek et. al. I haven’t spent much time on these
problems, so cannot comment a lot. But they are noticeably more difficult than
those in the predecessor of this problem collection.

https://www.quora.com/I-want-to-win-a-gold-medal-at-the-IPhO-What-can-I-do-to-improve-my-theory-What-are-the-best-problem-books-for-impro… 2/5
2/28/2019 I want to win a gold medal at the IPhO. What can I do to improve my theory? What are the best problem books for improving my the…

Additionally, there 1were some interesting (and hard) problems in Physics Cup:
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Competition “Physics Cup - IPhO2012” (2012);
https://www.ioc.ee/~kalda/ipho/P... (2017).

CONCLUSION

The more problems you solve, the better. However, the quality of preparation
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depends largely on the type of problem collection you are going through, so
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encapsulates the most important points on how to very well in theoretical creative thinking? What do you like about them?

round. How can I improve my English writing skills?

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Trajan Hammonds, Physics Student
Answered Aug 16, 2015

You mention you have David Morin, I'l assume you're talking about his Classical
Mechanics book which should provide more than enough challenging problems.
If you're looking for more, Irodov's Problems in General Physics is really good. I
like Problems in Physics by S. Krotov because it really walks you through the
solutions, but it might be a bit easier. But again, you probably can't go wrong
with Morin since the problems there can get really challenging and theoretical.
Also I hear it's the book they give out at camp for U.S. physics team. Good luck.!
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Harsh Shukla, Student at Cghs, Bandra East

Answered Oct 17

Beginner level

● Ncert 11 & 12th

●Concepts of physics

Intermediate level

●Physics by resnick ,Halliday, krane Volume 1

●Physics by resnick Halliday krane volume 2

●Physics Priciples with application D C .Giancoli

●Genral methods for solving physics problems .. B S Belikow

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2/28/2019 I want to win a gold medal at the IPhO. What can I do to improve my theory? What are the best problem books for improving my the…

Advanced level: 1
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●An Introduction to Mechanics (2nd Ed.), D. Kleppner & R. J. Kolenkow

●Introduction to Statics and Dynamics, A. Ruina & R. Pratap

●Electricity and Magnetism (3rd Ed.), E. M. Purcell & D. J. Morin

●Vibrations and Waves, A. P. French

●Introduction to Optics, F. L. Pedrotti & L. S. Pedrotti

●Concepts in Thermal Physics, Stephen Blundell & Katherine Blundell

●Spacetime Physics: Introduction to Special Relativity (2nd Ed.), E. F.

Taylor & J. A. Wheeler

Experimental:

** Practical Physics, G. L. Squires

Problem books:

●Problems in General Physics, I. E. Irodov

●Aptitude Test Problems in Physics, S. S. Krotov

● A Collection of Questions and Problems in Physics, L. A. Sena

●Int’l Physics Olympiad: Problems and Solutions from 1967-1995

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Iniyavel
Answered Aug 16, 2015

Here's an article you can read regarding that:

How to win a Gold Medal at International Physics Olympiad (IPhO)?

Though I'm not too familiar with IPhO, I would suggest reading Resnick,
Halliday and Walker's "Fundamentals of Physics". This helps students preparing
for the IIT Entrance exam.

Oh, and don't forget IE Irodov's books on Physics. They are great.

Best Regards.

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