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UK Chemistry Olympiad Round 2
Round 2 of the UK Chemistry Olympiad brings around thirty of the top Round 1 students together for selection, with theory and practical tests. Four are chosen to represent the UK at the International Chemistry Olympiad.
Its problems are close to the IChO preparatory problems: longer derivations, reaction mechanisms and the rate laws they lead to, solid-state structures and spectroscopy.
How to prepare here
- Mechanisms mode has you derive rate laws with the steady-state and pre-equilibrium approximations, step by step.
- The Book’s derivation pages show where the two-point and other formulas come from; Round 2 often asks for exactly that.
- Turn on “Include easier levels” in Settings to mix Round 1 questions in as warm-ups.
Conventions
- 3 significant figures unless the question says otherwise.
- Units: SI.
- Constants as on the data sheet: R = 8.314, NA = 6.022 × 10²³, F = 96485.
UKChO Round 2 question types (33)
- K from ΔG°
- ΔG° from K
- K from ΔH° and ΔS°
- van 't Hoff: K at a new temperature
- First order: concentration after time t
- Second-order half-life
- Steady state: A ⇌ I → P
- Pre-equilibrium then half-life
- Lindemann–Hinshelwood fall-off
- Michaelis–Menten rate
- ΔG° from E°
- Nernst equation
- ΔH at another temperature (Kirchhoff)
- Boiling point at reduced pressure
- Entropy change on heating
- ΔH from a bomb-calorimeter ΔU
- Kp from Kc
- pH of a weak base
- Density of a rock-salt crystal
- Atomic radius of a face-centred cubic metal
- Atomic radius of a body-centred cubic metal
- Unpaired electrons from a magnetic moment
- Crystal field splitting from a d–d absorption
- Latimer diagram: skipping an oxidation state
- Disproportionation constant from a Latimer diagram
- Water hardness by EDTA titration
- Nickel by EDTA back titration
- Apparent activation energy of a pre-equilibrium mechanism
- 2NO + O₂: pre-equilibrium with bimolecular steps
- Lindemann mechanism at a given pressure
- Methanol synthesis: K from tabulated data
- Daniell cell away from standard conditions
- Enzyme kinetics from elementary rate constants
Book pages for this level
Plus 72 reagents to drill in the reagent trainer.