<p>Which do you think is the hardest and which the easiest and why?</p>
<p>I gotta go with math for hardest; even though I finished calc bc a long time ago, I just am not too good at thinking like that just yet. </p>
<p>As for easiest, it’s definitely chem over physics. I feel much more comfortable with chemistry in general.</p>
<p>bio i’d say is easiest in terms of content but b/c content is easy, so many ppl do it so it’s just hard to get in.</p>
<p>chem has more difficult content but fewer people. </p>
<p>physics has really hard stuff but there are wayyyy few ppl who do this. my soph friend did this two years ago with only AP Physics C Mech and got in top 200. </p>
<p>math, no idea.</p>
<p>I’d say math for sure. There’s a plethora of math geniuses/super enthusiasts in the US, so the competition is tough. Also, math is something kids start doing at an early age is competition is greater and difficulty is just as great.</p>
<p>THe math ones only require you to know up to pre-Calculus. But they’re still hard, since so many people take math from an early age, unlikes physics, where it’s possible to graduate from high school without taking any physics (at least in my high school).</p>
<p>Dunno about the easiest though. The only one I’m familiar with is the Computing one.</p>
<p>math is hard not only because the competition is stiff, but also because the math tested on those exams aren’t usually touched at all in normal curricula. they say only pre-calculus knowledge is required, but I’d bet that the vast majority of average high school students have never heard of graph theory, fermat’s little theorem, inversion, etc.</p>
<p>i was on the us physics team last year, and admittedly, the first screening exam is not very hard at all. the stiff difficulty of the semifinal, combined with the fact that only 24 people are selected to the camp, however, ensures that the people who do make it on the team are pretty sweet at physics. the people i met at camp really blew me away.</p>
<p>wrt the relative difficulty of the olympiads themselves, it’s generally accepted that the imo, ioi, and ipho are the hardest olympiads.</p>
<p>what’s ioi? And what’s the cutoff score in the screening exam to get to semi-finalist status?</p>
<p>International Olympiad in Informatics, which is basically programming.</p>