IB Survival Guide: PART ONE
As someone who’s been through the IB program and finished with horrible mental and physical health, here are some tips and tricks so that you guys don’t end up like me :)
Disclaimer: subject specific tips vary for SL/HL students, go to the bottom of the post to see what HLs and SLs I took
Please please start your IAs early! Split it out across multiple days! Honestly each section takes around 30 minutes for IAs
GET ALL YOUR THOUGHTS ON THAT PAPER AS SOON AS POSSIBLE FOR ANY IA.
Even if it’s the worst rough copy in the history of the planet, get all your words on there, THEN start editing, formatting, and adding pictures. Trust me, this is much less stressful and your final copy will probably be much cleaner
Science IAs- START YOUR EXPERIMENTS EARLY get as many trials as you can in!
Be sure to talk to your teachers about ideas for your papers beforehand!
Geography/English/French IAs- start early for these too. If you’re like me and you have “oh shit” moments when you suddenly get really good ideas half way through your work and have to restart, starting early for these is a good idea. Especially for geo, writing the IA is relatively easy, spreading it out over 4-5 days works well.
Peer editing is always a good idea, people may catch things you didn’t
CHOOSE A TOPIC YOU LIKE- Interest plays a big part in how well you do, choosing a topic I was interested in made me not mind spending so much time on my EE
Choosing a topic you don’t like may increase your chance of leaving it to the last minute
START YOUR EEs EARLY and have at least 3 drafts. I split mine up over the course of 4 months, and came out with an A on my Geography EE.
Like the IAs, do one section a day, for example, start with introduction, then methodology, etc. etc.
DO NOT LEAVE YOUR EE TO THE LAST MINUTE PLEASE
I highly suggest doing a geo EE because even if you don’t have results you’re okay, you just have to explain why there was no correlation
Geo EE protips: have lots of pretty handdrawn maps, you can have an ok data analysis and still get a good grade, have good methodology,
discuss your EE with your supervisor often, make sure you udnerstand what you’re studying
Oh boy this is the scariest part of IB for any student
REVIEW REVIEW REVIEW as much as you can!
Study each subject for at least 5 days!
DO AS MANY PRACTICE EXAMS AS YOU CAN
Seriously, doing practice exams helps you get used to IB’s way of asking you things and you have an idea of what to expect
Do the practice exams guys
If your school has mock exams, study really hard for them so you get an idea of how you need to study for the actual examsLook back on mistakes you’ve made on tests/mocks
While studying, focus on your weak points, but don’t ignore your strong points– forgetting things is easy
SLEEP EARLY DURING EXAM WEEK
Being refreshed and ready to go is important because youll be able to focus better and your brain will work better– I did this and it was good
If you’re allowed to take snacks into the exam, take snacks into the exam (but not loud snacks, gummies and stuff)
take water into the exam but don’t drink a lot of water– pee breaks are a waste of time
if you need to pee during an exam try to hold it in
just try to avoid having to pee
You can study for your English Lit and French A lang lit exams in like a day if you’re not too keen on getting above a 5. Be familiar with the material
Memorize 5-7 important quotes– preferable really short ones
Even if it’s not mandatory to memorize quotes, sticking quotes in is an asset
Spend 10-20 minutes planning your essay out, get your ideas down on a paper before writing your essay
Remember: quality over quantity, even if you have lots written down, it’s your ideas that get you most of the marks
Use highlighters, highlight important words, quotes, etc in the passages you’re given
Have a colour coding system for your passages when you highlight, each colour should be an important point, but have 3-4 main important points, so 3-4 colours (this helps with planning as well)
If your prompt is like, discuss 2 OR MORE something something, discuss only 2, it’s easier, and you waste less time planning/writing, and you can have more ideas
Practice problems are good, on top of practice exams
Understand the material!!!!!!!!!!! Memorization is not understanding!!! IB asks a lot of questions that require application
If you suck at calculus, try to understand it better and don’t be like me and assume there isn’t going to be a lot of it.
Seriously study the calculus @all you SL students
Yeah for this you need to memorize really well, see how well you know the material by going out on walks pointing at things and seeing how you can relate it to what you’ve earned
Study from multiple sources for geo, sometimes there are details that are missed
Memorize lots of case studies and stats!!!!!!!
memorize graphs and maps too, drawing them to support your points in your answers shows how well you understand the material
REVIEW OH MY GOD REVIEW E V E R Y T H I N G as much as possible throughout the year!!!!!!
Tips to force yourself to review:
Take shitty notes in class
This way you have to retake good notes– wow you’re going over material that was previously taught!
Make cheatsheets! Even if you don’t use them during tests, cheatsheets are a great way to have all your material on one page and ohmygod look at you you’re reviewing your notes again to condense them!
Find a way to enjoy writing notes– for me, I like using fancy pens and highlighters, that way I looked forward to doing it
Find a study environment you like! A cafe, the library, the park, even a different part of the house
Changing your study environment can also help you focus– a change of scenery helps sometimes and you won’t get bored!
Seriously just explain concepts to yourself talk to yourself hearing yourself say it makes the info sink in better
Make really weird mnemonics idk it worked for me
Group studying can help for courses that need discussion in order to better understand concepts– Geo, English and French
Explaining things to people also helps
Do your homework kids– even if your teacher doesn’t check it, always find time to do your homework
Do things based on a level of priority
example: I have a test and a big project worth lts of marks due tomorrow (I would focus on the project, but still study for the test enough to have a good grasp of the material)
I know tests don’t count for IB but this is what your teacher bases your predicteds off of, so study hard for them kids. It is also a method of review
Most teachers understand how students can get extremely stressed out with the amount of work we get, if you need an extension for a non-IB related thing, you should be able to ~politely~ ask them
Time management is key, set up schedules for yourself
If you’re studying something you hate, go hard at it for a limited amount of time, then go and study for something you like, or take a brain break
seriously taking breaks while studying is good
Use apps like forest to keep you focused
reward systems are good too, I do it with chocolate (one piece everytime I finish a chapter)
The essay and the presentation are tough– but you can do it.
The nice thing about TOK is it’s mostly a thought dump, so dump your thoughts before organizing them into an essay
Discuss TOK things with your friends a lot– you’ll understand better, trust me, you’ll also get good ideas for presentations and stuff!
Get an interesting topic for your TOK presentation ok
discussion is the best advice I can give you guys
be prepared to get very angry because all your thoughts will contradict each other
existential crises are fun
That should be about it for Part 1 really, this is mainly academics based, I might add to this as time goes on.
If you have questions!!!! I took Chem HL, Bio HL, Geo HL, English Lit SL, French A Lang Lit SL, and Math SL, and did my EE in Geo. I’m happy to help any young ones out :))
Good Luck all you IB Students! You guys are brave, you can do it :)
