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Grade 11 Physics Contest


Next contest date - May 15, 2024

Contest Website

About the contest

The annual online physics contest open to ALL Grade 11 and 12 physics students will be occurring on May 24th. The contest is one hour long and is FREE! The contest will be open to BOTH Grade 11 AND Grade 12 students due to the generous support of the Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering at the University of Toronto. ALL physics teachers are encouraged to have their students enroll. Please remind students that it is intended to be a FUN contest and that it cannot impact their mark so that they do not feel intimidated to participate.


How to Enroll:The school physics teacher will enroll the school and be the contest manager for their students as in past contest years.  http://oapt.ece.utoronto.ca/register/. NOTE: To maintain integrity of the contest, it is NOT open to Virtual students.
There will be two separate divisions. Students who have started to take grade 12 physics (SPH4U), or have already completed it,  should select 'Grade 12'.The 'Grade 11' division is for students (of any grade) currently taking, or completed, Grade 11 physics (SPH3U) but who have not yet begun grade 12 physics.

After the contest, when students check their results, the Grade 11 results will include students’ scores, rankings and percentiles. The Grade 12 results will show the students’ score, but the ranking and percentiles for Grade 12s will show N/A. 
A reminder that the contest is online. It is strongly advisable to make sure students have downloaded the contest or have it on a USB key well in advance of the contest. That way they will be ready as soon as the teacher (contest coordinator) inputs their start code.


As mentioned above, the students have 60 minutes to complete the contest which has 30 multiple-choice questions, with one or two of the questions based on the previous years’ Nobel Prize in physics or current events in physics. The questions range from easy to difficult, conceptual to mathematical and abstract to concrete. It is a reasonable challenge for ALL Grade 11 SPH3U and ALL Grade 12 SPH4U students. Instructions on how to enroll and practice questions from previous years may be found on the following link: https://oaopt.wildapricot.org/contest

On that page you will also find a bank of over a thousand multiple-choice questions organized into categories and level of difficulty. Depending on your browser you may be able to click on the links directly or download them. These questions can be used throughout the year for assessment ‘of’, ‘and’ and ‘for’ learning.


Frequently Asked Questions 

What about schools outside Ontario? Schools outside of Ontario are not eligible to offer the current year's contest to its students, however students are welcome to register as a "Visitor". Visitors are able to look at past contests and run them on their computers.

What materials are the contest participants permitted? The students can use non-programmable calculators and scrap paper as required for their rough work. The students should not take the used scrap paper away with them when they leave the contest room.

What is the length of time students have to write the OAPT Grade 11 Physics Contest? The students have 60 minutes to complete it. The contest has 30 multiple choice questions, usually with one or two of those questions based on the previous year's nobel prize in physics, or current events in physics.

What time of day must the OAPT Grade 11 Physics Contest be written? The contest can be written at any time that is convenient on the contest date. If a computer lab is not available until lunch time, for example, that is fine.

Previous Contest Questions

Contests from 2012 to 2019 can be seen, and tried online,  on the contest website, after registration.
Here is our collection of previous contest questions from before 2010, sorted according to topic.

Kinematics

Forces 

Energy and Society 

Waves and Sound 

Electricity and Magnetism 

Current Events in Physics 

Nobel Prize in Physics 

Light and Optics 

Heat 

Nuclear Physics 

Unclassified


Last Year's Prizes included:

Thanks to The U of T Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering

The OAPT Grade 11 Physics Contest is sponsored by the University of Toronto – Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering
Special thanks to Dawn Britton, Associate Director of U of T Engineering Outreach and Jack Sun of the Rogers Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. 

Thanks to our volunteers and experts who review the contest and contribute questions

Contest Contributors:

Roberta Tevlin, Danforth Collegiate and Technical Institute, Toronto
Daniel Muttiah, A.Y. Jackson Secondary School, Toronto
Nassi Rafiee, John Polanyi Collegiate Institute, Toronto
Sandy Evans, Northview Heights Secondary School, Toronto

Contest Directors:

Sandy Evans, Northview Heights Secondary School, Toronto
Shawn Brooks, University of Toronto Schools, Toronto


Contest Results

The contest leaderboard is available here:

Leaderboard


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