Competitions · Chemistry · C3L6
C3L6, the Cambridge Chemistry Challenge.
Ninety minutes, two or three chemistry themes, and a dozen or so questions under each that start simple and do not stay that way. Set by Cambridge to take Year 12 students past their syllabus and make them think like undergraduates.
At a glance
What the challenge is, and who sits it.
C3L6 is organised by the University of Cambridge, with questions written by a team of experienced teachers and university chemists. It is deliberately pitched beyond the Year 12 syllabus.
- Organiser
- The University of Cambridge
- Who writes it
- A team of experienced schoolteachers and university chemists
- Who can enter
- Students in Year 12 - the Lower Sixth - and below. In Chinese terms this spans roughly junior 3 to senior 2, or G1 to AS
- Format
- A written paper of 90 minutes, sat under supervision at school
- Structure
- Two to three large chemistry themes, each carrying around a dozen related questions that rise in difficulty
- Scope
- A-Level chemistry, extended well beyond it
- Marking
- Teachers mark against a scheme supplied by the organisers
- What reaches Cambridge
- Papers scoring above 50% are forwarded to Cambridge
- When
- The China-region sitting is in early December, with registration closing in late November
- What the best students get
- An invitation to a residential chemistry camp at Cambridge
The question design
Information transfer, not recall.
C3L6’s structure is unusual and it is the single most useful thing to understand before preparing. The paper hands you material you have not seen.
Two or three themes, deeply worked
Rather than many unrelated questions, the paper takes a small number of chemistry topics and works each of them through a dozen or so linked sub-questions.
Rising from simple to demanding
Each theme opens accessibly and escalates. A student who can only manage the opening parts still scores, and the difficulty is concentrated at the end of each theme rather than in a separate section.
You are given what you need
The design is information transfer: unfamiliar chemistry is supplied within the question, and what is tested is whether A-Level tools can be applied to it. Not having met the topic is not a disadvantage.
Which rewards reading, not memorising
Preparation that consists of covering more content misses the point. The trainable skill is absorbing new information quickly and applying known chemistry to it.
How it is marked
Your teacher marks it. Cambridge sees the top half.
The marking route is unlike anything else in this group, and it affects what happens to a paper after it is written.
Marked at school, against a supplied scheme
The organisers provide the marking scheme and teachers mark their own students’ papers. This keeps the turnaround short and the administration light.
Above 50% goes to Cambridge
Papers scoring more than half are forwarded to Cambridge. Below that threshold a paper stays with the school, so the 50% line is the first thing to aim at.
Then the camp invitations
Cambridge invites the strongest performers to a residential chemistry camp at the university - the outcome most entrants are aiming at.
Schools submit as a group
The process runs through the school rather than individually: students register, sit the paper, teachers mark and submit scores, and invitations follow from Cambridge.
Preparation
How Hanlin prepares students for C3L6.
An information-transfer paper cannot be prepared for by covering more syllabus. Past papers matter more here than almost anywhere else.
Past papers are the method
Because the format is distinctive and consistent, working through previous papers is the most direct preparation available. The chemistry changes; the way it is presented does not.
Reading unfamiliar chemistry at speed
Students practise taking in a block of supplied information and identifying which A-Level principle it connects to. That is a habit, and it is what the paper measures.
Aiming at the 50% line first
Half marks is what gets a paper to Cambridge. For most entrants that is the realistic first target, and it is a clearer goal than an award band.
Securing the openings of every theme
Each theme begins accessibly. Banking those parts across two or three themes reliably beats exhausting yourself on the hardest end of one.
Why Hanlin
Preparation for C3L6 at Hanlin is taught by full-time subject tutors, on a course tier chosen by placement paper rather than by year group.
Programme formats
Five ways this is taught.
Group size is the whole difference between these. It decides how much of the tutor's attention a student gets and how far the course can bend to them, so it is worth choosing rather than accepting.
| Format | Group size | What it suits |
|---|---|---|
| One-to-one | One student | Content, pace and emphasis set by what this student actually needs rather than by a syllabus. The only format that can be rebuilt mid-course. |
| Small group | Three to eight | Opens at three. Frequent discussion, and the tutor can slow down or move on according to what the group has absorbed. Most students chasing a higher award are taught in this one. |
| Class | Eight to twelve | Taught by the subject lead or a medal coach. Less back-and-forth, so it suits a student who will say when something is unclear. |
| Large class | Ten to twenty | For students in the middle of the placement range, and a way to try a competition before committing. Students often move to a small group or to one-to-one afterwards. |
| Past-paper class | No cap | Past papers worked through in sequence in the weeks before the sitting. Free to students already enrolled. |
Course length for C3L6 is set after a placement paper. The gap between where a student is and what the paper asks for is what the course has to close, and that gap is not the same for two students in the same year group.
How it runs
Six steps, four people on your side.
The same process for every student, so that nothing depends on one tutor remembering to do it.
Step 1Pre-course assessment
A placement paper before anything is booked, so the course tier is chosen on evidence rather than on a year group.
Step 2Tutor matching
A subject tutor is matched to the result, and their full background is provided before you agree to it.
Step 3Plan and group
A study group opens with four people on one student: the tutor, a planner, a supervisor and an academic manager.
Step 4Scheduled teaching
The teaching office sets the timetable around the competition date and school term, and teaching begins.
Step 5After-class reports
What was covered, and how the student handled it, reported after every lesson.
Step 6Homework follow-up
The teaching assistant and the form teacher both check that homework is done, which is where most preparation quietly fails.
Free resource pack
Past papers and preparation pack
The same material our own C3L6 students work from. Scan the code, say what you need, and an advisor sends it.
Tell an advisor which competition and year group, and the material comes back the same day. Free, and you do not have to enrol in anything. If we do not already hold what you need, we will go and find it.
- PDFPast papers, every year the organiser has released
- PDFWorked solutions, where the organiser publishes them
- PDFThe syllabus on one page - every topic, and how heavily it is examined
- PDFEntry checklist and the dates for the current cycle
Teaching team
Who would teach it.
Three of the twenty-two tutors on the published Hanlin roster - the ones whose subject this is.
Dr Li
A Fudan postdoctoral researcher with a PhD in organic chemistry from HKUST, a master's in medicinal chemistry and nano-engineering from East China University of Science and Technology jointly with Myongji University, and a first degree in pharmaceutics. College Board-accredited.
Qiu
PhD in organic chemistry from the Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, after materials physics at East China University of Science and Technology. College Board-accredited, with published papers on organic small-molecule catalysis in internationally recognised journals.
Shi
Master's in water science and engineering from TU Dresden - one of Germany's TU9 institutes - after environmental engineering at Ocean University of China. A researcher in environmental chemistry at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, a DAAD scholarship holder, and College Board-accredited.
Student results
What Hanlin students got.
Taken from Hanlin's published record of student honours and rewritten in English. Figures are as the organisers reported them.
C3L6
- 20252 Gold in the UK region
Earlier years
- 20244 global Gold
The full record, across every subject and year, is on the student honours page.
Where it is taught
Hanlin learning centres.
Teaching runs from Hanlin's own centres in Shanghai, Shenzhen, Chengdu and Hangzhou, and online for students elsewhere.
Talk to an advisor
Everything Hanlin does for C3L6, in one conversation.
Entry, planning, coaching and the past papers. An advisor will tell you which of these a student actually needs, including when the answer is none of them.
Competition entry and planning
Which competitions suit this student, in what order, and by when - then we handle the registration, including the ones that can only be entered through a school or a centre.
Competition coaching
Taught by full-time subject tutors, on a course tier chosen by placement paper rather than by year group.
International curriculum tutoring
IB, AP, A-Level, IGCSE and the US high school curriculum, taught alongside school and timed around the exam calendar.
Competition past papers, free
A large library of past papers, mark schemes and syllabus breakdowns across every competition on this site. No charge and no enrolment.
Scan to add an advisor
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C3L6, briefly answered.
What students and schools ask before entering.
Who can enter C3L6?
Students in Year 12 - the Lower Sixth - and below, which in Chinese terms spans roughly junior 3 to senior 2, or G1 to AS.
What is the paper like?
Ninety minutes, sat under supervision at school. It presents two to three large chemistry themes, each carrying around a dozen linked questions that rise in difficulty.
Do I need to know the topics in advance?
Not the specific chemistry. The design is information transfer - unfamiliar material is supplied within the question and you apply A-Level tools to it.
How hard is it?
It is written by university chemists to reach well beyond the Year 12 syllabus and to encourage undergraduate-style thinking. The opening parts of each theme are accessible; the later parts are not.
Who marks the paper?
Teachers mark their own students’ papers against a scheme supplied by the organisers, then submit the scores.
What happens to my paper afterwards?
Papers scoring above 50% are forwarded to Cambridge. Below that, the paper stays with the school.
What do the best students receive?
An invitation to a residential chemistry camp at Cambridge, which is the outcome most entrants are working toward.
Does it help with a UK application?
It is run by Cambridge and pitched at students considering chemistry at university, so it reads directly in applications to British and American programmes.
Related
Other chemistry contests.
What students commonly enter alongside C3L6.
C3L6 enquiries
The chemistry you need is in the question.
C3L6 supplies unfamiliar material and tests whether A-Level chemistry can be applied to it, which makes past papers the preparation rather than more content. Tell us the year group and an advisor will map the December entry.