Harvard Undergraduate Science Olympiad India HUSO India Open Round 1

OVERVIEW

All five subjects (Maths, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Earth Science) will be provided to you in one singular exam, which you have 3 hours to complete. Your performance on all 5 sections will be considered for your final score. Each section is weighed equally. All questions are multiple-choice and have 5 possible answers and exactly 1 correct answer. Each correct answer will give you 1 point. You will lose 0.25 points for an incorrect answer. You will receive 0 points for a question left blank

Exam Format

The exam will be split into two divisions, one for 7-8^th grade and one for 9-10

Students will have 3 hours for the entire exam which they may distribute among the sections as they wish

There are 5 sections: Biology, Chemistry, Earth Science, Math, Physics

All questions will be multiple choice with 5 answer choices (A, B, C, D, E)

Scientific (non-graphing, non-programmable) calculator, ruler, and compass will be allowed

A sheet with necessary constants will be provided and released to competitors (sometime over the summer)

Reference Material

You will be provided with a periodic-table and a list of all needed constants in the exam booklet. Common formulas will not be provided.

Scoring

On each section (Chemistry, Maths, Biology, Physics, Earth Science), each student’s raw section score (# of correct answers - 0.25 * number of incorrect answers) will be calculated

You will receive 0 points for a question left blank

A student’s scaled section score is defined as the z-score of their raw score on that section compared to the other students. In other words,

Scaled section score=

Student's raw section score - Mean raw section score across testtakers

Standard Deviation of raw section scores across testtakers

A student’s total score is defined as the sum of their best four scaled section scores (the worst section will be dropped). Students will be awarded prizes and qualification for the Final Camp based on their total scores

ROUND 2
STRUCTURE AND SCORING

Top 100 students will move to Round 2

In Round 2 students will participate in a written, in-person exam in New Delhi on January 7^th

This exam will be supervised by mentors from The Harvard Undergraduate Science Olympiad

Additionally, students will have the opportunity to attend a 3-day STEM bootcamp, from January 8^th to 10^th, conducted by the same mentors