Hey, I’ll be starting ib in highschool next year, do you have any tips? I really want to be prepared and everything. Maybe some videos or any other kind of resources that could help me? Maybe some study, organization or note taking tips?
Everyone has different ways to stay organised. For that, I would say, stick with the system you have currently. As long as the organisation makes sense to you, you’re good.
I’ve had a few different methods of taking notes over the last year and a half. First of all, I have the notes taken in class, in a notebook. Usually these notes are messy and don’t look nice at all. But, they are really good for absorbing information better. If you write something down by hand, you remember it better, it’s proven by science. Secondly, on top of class notes, for a while I would go home and I would take notes on what I did in class that day in a fresh notebook, while looking in a textbook. This makes the notes neater and I can use them for studying. However, I don’t do this any more, because it’s more time consuming and I woukd rather learn right out of a textbook. I also take some notes on digital documents. This I only do for geography, because my teacher has a system where we do our own research.
For resources, I have some really useful “textbooks” I want to recommend! They’re not really textbooks, rather they are study guides, and only contain the most important information from the syllabus. It’s the oxford IB study guides if you’re interested. I seriously love these books. They have SAVED me!!! I almost exclusively use them to study. I have the chemistry and biology study guides, but they have them for almost every subject (or maybe just for group 3 and 4 subjects?). This is what they look like btw. You can just buy them on amazon! There’s a few different versions it seems like, so make sure you get one for the year that you’re doing it (the IB changes the syllabus of every subject once every 7 years)
In terms of getting prepared, I really don’t think there’s much that you have to do. Seriously, I assume you start August/September? You have so many months still please don’t worry too much. Enjoy your free time! Because over those next two years, you will always have something that needs to be done. I don’t want to scare you though ahah. Focus on what you’re learning in class now, do your best, and that’s the best preparation (and most realistic preparation) you can do.
Please don’t worry too much about the IB! The fact that you’re motivated to prepare is a good sign. Effort gets you a long way in the IB. Just being smart doesn’t get your through the IB, it’s the hard work and dedication that does, and so you got this!!