Singapore Physics Olympiad

Arguably easier than SJPO. I only recommend doing past year papers if you are preparing specifically for this, but even then you should only do 1 or 2 to get a feeling of how the paper is like, and spend the rest of your time learning physics properly. Most of the problems are straightforward, but intentionally niche or vague to make it artifically difficult. For example, in 2024, you needed to know what a Hohmann transfer was. If you didn’t, too bad, you get 0 for that problem. If you did, it becomes a trivial application of the vis-viva equation. Just like SJPO, it also tends to have quite a lot of mistakes, so don’t go insane if your answer differs from their. Generally, to do well, you just need to have superficial knowledge of everything in the syllabus, as the problems rarely go beyond the absolute basics of what you learn.

Pre-2018 papers were set by NUS instead of NTU, so you’ll see a large difference in the style. Pre-2018 problems are sometimes copied from popular books like Morin’s Classical Mechanics, but there are some really nice original problems too. The more recent ones are also copied, but from other sources. For example, SPhO 2024 Q4 is copied wholesale from problem 177 of 200 More Puzzling Physics Problems. Funnily enough, SPhO even copies questions from itself, which is weird because the problems aren’t even that good. For example, 2023 Paper 2 copies a lot of problems from 2019 Paper 2. I’d like to say that the situation is improving, but unfortunately nothing much has changed.

I usually include results when I have them, but I only have the 2024 ones. If you have any from previous years, I’d love to add it here.

Links: Official Website, Old Website