How did you prepare for IPhO (International Physics

Olympiad)?
I want some personal experiences :)
As far as resources are concerned, I know them and am doing them ( irodov, resnick etc ) . ... More

Vipul Singh, World Rank 41 (India Rank 2) and Silver Medalist at IPhO 2010; World
Rank 2 in Modern Physics (score: 9.8/10)
Answered Oct 21, 2013 Upvoted by Vladimir Novakovski, IPhO 2001 silver medal

Thanks for the A2A.

Firstly, the syllabus for the NSEP and INPhO is the same as that of IIT-JEE, so a thorough
preparation for the latter should be enough to get you through to the camp. There, you face
some topics like relativity and quantum mechanics, for which you can prepare in April (well,
we used to have JEE around 10th April, so we could but I am sure, you can find some time
too). For an OCSC-level grasp on these concepts, Resnick's book on relativity and Serway-
Moses-Meyer/ Mani-Mehta's book on modern physics suffice.

Once you are at the OCSC, your experimental skills are put to the test too. So, it does help a
lot if you have been to a proper school and not just joined a dummy one. On how to prepare
specifically for the IPhO, well, the PDTC (pre-departure training camp) is quite good. Apart
fromRead
that, just go through the plethora of papers
Answer Notifsfrom previous years
You and gain good speed
and practice.

On a more personal note, I must confess that my physics wasn't exactly at the IPhO level by
December 2009. After that, I came in touch with a very good teacher and spent almost the
entire Jan '10 strengthening my weak areas. I do specifically remember this book "200
Puzzling Physics Problems" by Peter Gnadig which gave me a lot of insight and taught me
many a beautiful trick, helping me in the competitive exams as well as IPhO.

PS - Following are a few newspaper articles from late 2011 that I authored on how to master
physics for IIT-JEE, a necessity before you even think of the IPhO.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Vipul Singh
Master of my fate; Captain of my Soul

R&D Machine Learning at Bloomberg 2016-present

Studied at Carnegie Mellon University

Lives in Pittsburgh, PA 2014-present

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