Top Ten in University of Cambridge Chemistry Race

On Saturday 4 February, a team comprised of five of Caterham’s strongest chemists competed in the fourth Chemistry Race at the Department of Chemistry at the University of Cambridge. We came sixth at Cambridge and ninth nationally. The team consisted of Avery C, Alex M, Luke Y (U6) and Lisa H and Philip M (L6), accompanied by Mr Keyworth, competing under the team’s name Alex and his Besties. Although Alex had tried to suggest other names after this one was initially suggested, if the team’s name were to be X and their Besties, Alex thought the original proposal was the best. Leading up to the event, we assigned ourselves specialities to focus our preparation on. We therefore learnt content both on the A-Level syllabus and beyond it, as well as attempting questions from both past Chemistry Races and from various chemistry Olympiad competitions.

Although we intended to get the same train from East Croydon to Cambridge, the team ended up arriving on three separate trains, with trains from Caterham cancelled almost all morning due to strikes. This resulted in us only meeting up during the briefing in the lecture theatre itself, and the race itself started shortly after the briefing ended.

With the aim of answering as many questions as possible in a two-hour period, each team worked on six questions at a time. The questions tested chemistry knowledge, mathematical ability, and problem-solving ability. Topics in questions included Atomic Force Microscopy, the ingredients of toothpaste, the number of sigma bonds in buckminsterfullerene, heating a bath using the energy released from the reaction of sodium hydroxide and hydrochloric acid, filling party balloons using alpha-particles released from the radioactive decay of Polonium-210, and the ionic radii of group 1 metal ions held inside organic molecules.

Alex and his Besties