Junior Jeffrey Huang qualified to compete in the United States National Physics Olympiad, a prestigious national science competition. Qualifying was no ordinary feat: Jeffrey competed in a pool of 6,000 students who took the preliminary Physics Olympiad exam, called the F=ma exam. The F=ma exam is a 75 minute multiple choice test. Jeffrey is one of 400 people that qualified to take the national test.

“The National Physics Olympiad is a free response, calculus-based exam which covers the following topics: Mechanics, Electricity and Magnetism, Thermodynamics, Fluids, Relativity, Waves, and Nuclear and Atomic Physics. This is a much larger area of study and is significantly more difficult than the preliminary exam,” Huang said.

Huang’s qualification leads to a lot of preparation for the national competition.

“What I have done is just review all chemistry and physics topics by going over my chemistry and physics textbooks. I also did a few practice tests from past years,” Huang said.

Other than qualifying for The United States National Physics Olympiad, Huang also qualified for the National Chemistry Olympiad Exam. This is a much longer test, 4 hours and 45 minutes. The test includes questions across all kinds of chemistry.

Jeffrey took the Physics exam on April 11th and will take the Chemistry exam on April 21st.