Hungary

Ministry of Interior - Ministry of State for Public Education

kormany.hu/belugyminiszterium/dr-maruzsa-zoltan

The main organiser is MABITE (Hungarian Biology Teachers' Association) in cooperation with the University of Szeged, Faculty of Science and Informatics

There is only one category, and it is open to all secondary school students who fulfil the following criteria:

• Attends a secondary school where the official National Core Curriculum (NAT) is based, and the officially authorised Framework Curriculum is followed
• Is born on 1 July or later in the year of the competition minus twenty
• attends the school on a full-time work schedule (private learners with personal work schedules are excluded)
• Mainly students in their 11th, 12th or 13th school year
• Advances to the second round of the National Biology Competition (OKTV Biologia I. or II.), which assesses basic factual knowledge and allows cca. Some exceptions can be requested for five hundred students/year to advance to the second round.
• Accepts the Rules and Regulations of IBOHUN Selection Competition (IBOHUN Versenyszabalyzat)
• Fills in the online application questionnaire

"0th round":

• 1st round of the National Biology Competition for Secondary School Students (OKTV Biologia – categories I and II)
• Organised by the official Public Education Office ("Oktatási Hivatal")
• Paper-based test proctored by local schoolteachers according to the rules

1st and 2nd round:

• Open to all eligible applicants
• Online tests (90-120 min/test) - classmarker.com test system
• Raw scores are summed up, and the sum is normalised to a z-score.
• t(II) = 50 + 10 * z-score
• The t(II) score determines who can enter the next round, but is not later included in the final ranking.

3rd round:

• Eligible participants are the top 25-30 contestants based on t(II) scores – not less than 1/3 of the participants should be male/female students, and not less than 1/4 of the participants should be in their non-final school year
• Organised by MABITE
• It takes place in Budapest, and it is a one-afternoon-long event.
• The test is usually 180 minutes long.
• An on-site paper-based test consists of three or four subtasks containing calculation problems related to the announced Practicals by the current host.
• No names, but codes are used to identify students.
• The Competition Board determines which weight is used to sum up each subtask's z-scores based on their difficulty.
• The t(III) is the weighted sum of each subtask's z-score.
• Before the rank is declared, students can give anonymous feedback on the marking.
• The t(II) score determines who can enter the next round, but is not later included in the final ranking.

4th round

• Eligible participants are the top 12-16 contestants based on t(III) scores – not less than 1/3 of the participants should be male/female students, and not less than 1/4 should be in their non-final school year.
• Organised by MABITE
• It takes place in Szeged (Termosz Laboratory) – two consecutive days
• For the theory part, the previous year's IBO theory tests summed up raw scores and normalised them to a z-score and t(theo).
• 3-4 practicals based on the announced practicals by the current host of the IBO. Raw scores are normalised for each practical (z-score), and the average is calculated and normalised again to the t(prac).
• Final score of the HUNBIO competition is t(final)
• t(final)= t(prac) + t(theo)

Selection of the team members

• After ranking the competitors based on t(final), the top four participants will be selected as IBO team members.
• In some years, when a selected competitor is not able or not recommended to participate in the IBO, the fifth or sixth competitor will be invited as a team member

• National Biology Competition - serves as the 0th round: cca. 5,000 contestants
• 1st round of HUNBIO: 100-120 students who got into the second round of the National Biology Competition

• 0th round: National Biology Competition - paper-based MCQ tests with knowledge-based questions (72 questions; 90 points; 3 hours)
• 1st and 2nd round of HUNBIO - online test MCQ + Calculations (35-50 questions; 70-100 points; 90-120 min)
• 3rd round of HUNBIO - paper-based test with calculation, graphing, evaluation, data analysis questions (3-4 task sheets, each with 20-30 questions; 180 min)
• 4th round of HUNBIO - Theory: previous year's IBO tasks as they are (2* 180 min)
• 4th round of HUNBIO - Practicals: 3-4 laboratory tasks (each is 90 min)

No training for NBO

10-14 days of training for the Team members before the IBO

• Campbell book (9th-12th edition)
• masteringbiology.com
• Former IBO tasks - uploaded to the website.
• hhmi.org - biointeractive contents
• Physioex
• Lab manuals and protocols

No special awards or prizes offered. We issue a certificate of attendance and results.

There is only one category and is open to all secondary school studentswho fulfills the following criteria:

• attends a secondary school where the official National Core Curriculum (NAT) based, and officially authorized Framework Curriculum is followed
• is born on 1 July or later of the year of the competition minus twenty
• attends the school in fulltime work schedule (private learners with personal work schedule are excluded)
• mainly students in their 11th, 12th or 13th schoolyear
• advances to the second round of the National Biology Competition (OKTV Biologia I. or II.), which assesses basic factual knowledge and lets cca. 500 students/year to advance to the second round - some exceptions can be requested in certain cases
• accepts the Rules and Regulations of IBOHUN Selection Competition (IBOHUN Versenyszabalyzat)
• fills in the online application questionnaire

September - June

2-5 hours/week in schools following the public education curriculum

32-37 classes/week in general education

Schools are informed via the principals and the Biology / Science HoDs on the opportunity in mid February via email.

MABITE (Association of Biology Teachers in Hungary)

• 2021: 67 students from 20 schools (4.3% of eligible schools)
• 2020: 82 students from 28 schools (6% of eligible schools)
• 2019: 106 students from 32 schools (7% of eligible schools)
• 2018: 127 students from 36 schools (7.7% of eligible schools)
• 2017: 97 students from 27 schools (6% of eligible schools)
• 2016: 122 students from 32 schools (7% of eligible schools)

Usually, local media conduct interviews with some competitors occasionally.

National TVs/journals/news portals announce the results occasionally (once every 3-4 years)