Hello
readers! My name is Munirul Alam, and I was a regional champion of the Bangladesh
Physics Olympiad in 2016 and 2017. I’m writing this blogpost in order to share
my experience, which I hope will be helpful to guide you in your preparation.
So
let’s come to the main point. In order to win a medal at the Physics Olympiad,
you don’t have to be a superhuman or something. People who participate in PhO
and win there are all normal people just like you. So, how do they manage to triumph
over the battle?
In this
post, I will try to answer your question. First of all, there are three
categories in BDPhO, and I will divide my post in three segments based on each
category.
Three categories in the Bangladesh Physics Olympiad are Category A (Class 7-8), Category B(Class 9-10) and Category C (Class 11-12).
Category
A
It’s
very nice to know that you are fascinated about physics at such an early age! Usually
people who start early end up as one of the most successful ones. পদার্থবিজ্ঞান প্রথম পাঠ by Dr. Muhammamad
Zafar Iqbal will be a nice and easy book to start off. It contains a lot of good
problems, and the text is more accessible to beginners. You can also going
through the class 9-10 physics textbook. But I personally prefer the first
book.
As a beginner, you
can also start with non-calculus physics textbooks like "College Physics
by Alan Giambattista, Betty McCarthy Richardson, and Robert C. Richardson” or "Physics by
John D. Cutnell, Kenneth W. Johnson”.
Category
B
If
you are in Category B, your first and foremost task will be finishing the class
9-10 Physics textbook properly. You can also have a look at the older version
of the textbook, which used to be little more comprehensive. When you’re done
with 9-10 textbook, you can move on to building up good problem solving skills.
You can find previous problems here (Click Here).
Pause.
Now
that you’re done with your physics textbook, you should aim higher and start
reading either “Physics by Halliday, Resnick, Krane (HRK)” or “University Physics
by Young and Freedman”. Keep in mind
that these books are calculus-based physics texts, and a prior knowledge of
Calculus will give you an upper hand. This note by Emroz Khan (one of the past problem
setters of Physics Olympiad) will be helpful in this regard (Click Here). Or, you can read any good Calculus textbook or take online course to solidify
your mathematical knowledge.
Category
C
Now
it’s time for Category C. Well, if you are in category C and wish to do well in
BDPhO, you should have finished HRK or University Physics by now. You should
start studying An Introduction to Mechanics (Kleppner and Kolenkow),
Electricity and Magnetism Third Edition (E.M Purcell and David Morin), and Thermal
Physics (Schroeder) to strengthen your understanding on particular topics.
Also, you
should start solving the past IPhO Problems , which can be found here (Click Here).
A lot of other stuffs can be found at the BdPhO website (Website) and Science Olympiad Blog's server (Click Here). Quora (Link) has a lot of nice answers on Physics Olympiads ranging from national to IPhO. You may want to check those.
Hope
that you’ll rock on the Physics Olympiad! All the very best.
Written
by Munirul Alam.
Edited
by Shahreer Zahan.
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