Asian Physics Olympiad (APhO): What IP Parent & Student Should Know

TL;DR The Asian Physics Olympiad (APhO) is Asia's highest-level secondary-school physics contest.
Each May, ~200 teens from ~30 nations sit one $5 \space \text{h}$ theory and one $5 \space \text{h}$ experimental paper; medals follow a strict "top 8-17-25 %" cut-off rule. Singapore selects 8 finalists through the National Physics Olympiad → SPOT training camp pathway, and those Olympiad skills transfer directly to IP topics like vectors, SHM and E-fields.

1 What exactly is APhO?

The APhO was founded in 1999 by Nobel-laureate-to-be Prof. Takaaki Kajita and first held in Jakarta in May 2000.
It mirrors the International Physics Olympiad but limits participation to Asian & Pacific states.
Each delegation sends up to eight students plus two leaders.

1.1 Paper structure

• Theory paper: three multipart questions, $5\space \text{h}$.
• Experiment paper: two lab tasks, $5\space \text{h}$