FAQ
Yes! The contest is an official contest recognised and approved by the Singapore Institute of Biology (SIBiol). All participants will receive medal certificates depending on their final ranking.
No problem! While you may have received registration information from your school teachers, you are more than welcome to form teams with friends of other schools.
Yep! Students are allowed to form teams with those of other levels as long as they are all in pre-university education.
You can team up with other students also looking for a team on our Discord server! The teamwork element is what makes SBL so special!
You are eligible to participate as long as you are in pre-university education (i.e. JC, MI, Poly, ITE and International Schools Years 11-12 or equivalent).
The contest costs about 1.25 × 1025 ATP molecules per person... Just kidding! It's free of charge, so do not hesitate to sign up and have fun!
The contest is team-based and will last 4 hours from on . It will be held online and will comprise of 3 segments:
- Main Problems, where you answer questions based on a scenario,
- Reflex Ark, a synchronous quiz-style showdown where teams race to answer questions on a new biology topic as quickly as possible, and
- Adrenaline Rush, where you answer a grid of short multiple choice questions.
Check out the rules page for more details.
No prior experience in any Olympiad is required. You don't even need to read Biology as a subject to participate! All you need are critical thinking skills and how to piece together information from multiple sources.
You are encouraged to use the internet to supplement any information you need to understand and answer the problems. However, you are discouraged from using generative AI programmes because they have frequently returned inaccurate answers to our problems, and the problems are crafted such that these programmes would be unable to solve them.
Please refrain from interactions with those who do not belong to your team to ensure a fair contest. Instead, discuss the problems with your teammates!
Our problems have been framed and curated in such a way that Google would not be able to answer everything, so your team will have to do some inference and application of knowledge!
However, you are encouraged to use Google to supplement any factual information that you need to solve the problems.
Don't fret over memorising tons of facts for the contest! Prepare your tools and ensure that your devices are fully charged and ready to go. Remember to sign in punctually on and let your creative brain juices flow!
Yes! We all aim to encourage teamwork in solving problems and open access to the Internet. The main differences are that SBL focuses on biology, and we have long-form story-based questions with a variety of different question types.
All participants will receive certificates of participation. The top 70% of participants will also receive medal certificates. Find more information on awards on our rules page.
Still have more questions? Send us an email at