Welcome to the 2018 USABO competition! The 2018 changes reflect the continued development and recognition of USABO where students who are passionate about biology find like-minded colleagues in the USA and abroad.

USABO Registration Site

Registriation fee has increased from $80 to $95. Please note this and be sure to notify you Financial Officer of this increase.

CEE continues to work on providing a more user-friendly registration site tested for usability by USABO teachers. Once your school information has been entered, it will be permanently stored to ease registration in coming years. If you registered your school for the USABO in the years 2011 through 2017, you will find your school in the dropdown menu in the Test Administrator section on the USABO homepage. Although you will find your school in the dropdown menu, all teachers and students will still need to register for 2018.

USABO Exam Question Format

The USABO Open Exam uses Multiple Choice format wtih one response per question.  NEW: No Scantrons!   Answer Sheets will be emailed as prepopulated PDFs. Return of completed Answer Sheets is requested by Email and by hard copy.

The USABO Semifinal Exam uses the Multiple Choice and Short Answer formats. The Multiple True/False Choice format is used for the IBO Theoretical and for the  USABO National Exam.

Teacher Resource Center (TRC)

The TRC is a work in progress. Once your school has completed the registration process and payment has been received, please check the TRC for the latest resources and links to help you to prepare your students for the USABO. Content is arranged according to the seven IBO focus groups:

• Cell Biology
• Animal Anatomy and Physiology
• Plant Anatomy and Physiology
• Ethology
• Genetics and Evolution
• Ecology
• Biosystematics

All Open Exams and the Semifinal Exams from 2003 to 2015 with keys are available online in the Teacher Resource Center (TRC). Test Administrators may use them as they see fit with their students in hard copy format only. Under no circumstances is the URL to be provided to students or the exams to be linked to other web sites!

Student Corner (SC)

This area is open to ALL students whether they have registered for the USABO or not. It includes the following sections:

• How to Start a USABO Club: Step by step information and guidance from USABO students who have formed USABO Clubs at their schools. Each year, this information is updated with input from USABO participants.
• General Content: As the title implies, this has information on the areas of the IBO Curriculum.
• Content: This area has been expanded to include:
  • Suggested sites.
  • Suggested texts for in-depth and supplemental study or reading.
  • Scientist of interest
  • USABO Finalists’ Favorite Links
  • Introduction to the seven areas of the IBO curriculum resources where more indepth resources are found in the Student Resource Center.

Student Resource Center (SRC)

This page has information specifically for students who have registered for the USABO.

• All seven areas of the International Biology Olympiad (IBO) have been updated with useful links, study problems, and other resources to prepare for the USABO.
• The Biodiverisity area has an image of a common organism for each taxonomic representative prescribed by the IBO.