Contestant performance in the multiple-choice section of the 2026 Philippine Physics Olympiad qualifying round

Abstract

The Philippine Physics Olympiad (PPO) aims to identify students with exceptional skills in physics. In the qualifying round, the contestant's understanding of a wide range of physics topics were tested in the multiple-choice section. In this paper, we analyzed the result of the multiple-choice section of the PPO 2026 Qualifying Round exam to gauge contestant performance in physics. We show that 98% of the contestants answered less than 10 out of 20 items correctly, with 4 being the most frequent score. We also show that the distribution of the contestant scores closely resembled the distribution associated with hypothetical contestants who merely guessed all their answers. Because of the breadth of topics the PPO qualifying exam covered, and the many approaches the contestants can take to answer the exam, we recommend further studies to be made to investigate how contestants typically approach physics problems, and how they prepare for these types of exams.