Two Year 12 pupils have been awarded gold certificates in the Cambridge Chemistry Challenge Lower Sixth – or C3L6 for short. The result places Arran Patel and Nigethan Sathiyalingam in the top 7% of chemists in the country in their age group.
Mehul Jesani and Salman Khan have been awarded silver whilst Burhan Ashraf, Movin Abeywickrema, Vignesh Gopalan and Sharad Raval all achieved copper (not bronze, since copper is an element, whereas bronze is an alloy). More than 4,000 students entered the competition, with 40% of the entrants receiving no classification at all.
Head of Science at QE, Dr Malcolm Russell, said: “This is an amazing set of results – all of the boys who entered from QE received a certificate of merit. When I think about the examination, many of the questions were significantly beyond the syllabus traditionally studied at school up to this point. The test required a great deal of application and understanding.”
The competition, designed specifically for members of the Lower Sixth, took the form of a two-hour written examination and was organised by Dr Peter Wothers at the University of Cambridge Department of Chemistry. Its stated aim is to stretch and challenge students interested in chemistry, and to encourage them to think about science in the way they would at university.