advice from an ib student who literally only started one month ago
i'm not actually qualified to give this advice yet, but I know where I'm in my subjects and what I could've done to better:
1. I wasted the summer before IB. I did a physics class for university requirements (in the case I don't get a 5 in chemistry which is the replacement grade for physics 11 at the uni) even though I'm taking bio, chem, and english at the HL.
if you prioritize chemistry in the summer, which is the class I'm taking and the grade that unis will see, then take chem 11. buy the textbook (Pearson every time) and study it during the summer. Even if it's not chemistry, and you know it's a subject you'll struggle in, use the TEXTBOOK. it's your baby now.
there are kids who did this and they're miles ahead of everyone else in the class, just by studying during the summer. probably still self studying ahead now too.
2. don't fall behind. regular classes let you do that, but when you do that in ib, concepts build over other concepts, so if even one concept is weak, you're going to be left cramming in the weekend before in-class tests. which, trust me, will probably not get you above a 4 or a 5. while other kids were reviewing, you were learning - and that takes up a lot of the study time.
i'd recommend getting ahead (refer to 1), like studying textbook of a lesson before the teacher teaches in class, because even if they can't choose your actual grade, they do choose your predicted mark and in some cases, you may have to apply to uni with your predicted.
3. yea that's it. i'll update when i'm failing again probably.
welcome to the community Jessica! I am going to start IB for the first time in August, so I was wondering if as a senior, you had any tips for just starting IB students???
ah thank you ! and yes, i do have a couple of tips to get you through this program:
do your homework the day you get it. i’m not even kidding, it will seriously pile up.
have a system for keeping up with your notes over the course of two years. ( for HL courses) this is because the stuff you learn in your first year will be tested in the second year. my school makes us have “future self notebooks” for each subject and this is where we take all of our notes
so, make sure you’re organized. go ahead and buy that planner so you can write down every single test and homework assignment
work on your ee consistently. you don’t want to attempt to do your ee in a weekend. make sure you constantly make changes or do research (overall just work) on your ee
make sure to give yourself a break! IB is so mentally draining, so i suggest setting a day where you don’t do any work. for me, i don’t do any homework on fridays
never cram for tests. you need to actually learn the information and not just memorize it. the tests are made in a way to test how well you understand and retain the information
always put in effort, seriously, into everything you do for school.
also, just remember that your grades do not define you. IB is challenging but at the end, it is worth it. i wish you (and anyone else joining IB) the best of luck!
also, if any of you want more ib posts, let me know!
This is some advice I’ve found online to help since I have my first practice paper 2 tomorrow. I’ll add some additional feedback in a week or so once my teacher grades and gives feedback. I’ve broken it down into generic tips as well as specific advice for those who don’t have the attention span of a goldfish like I do.
disclaimer: if your teacher says to do something different, you probably should listen! after all, im just a student :)
Generic Tips:
basically a summary of the specific advice section
use elevated language
read the books
use sparknotes
create a study guide
key things to know about the content: time period, main themes, author background, cultural references.
include quotes
know the rubric
know how to write a literary essay and have the correct format with good organization and direction
More Specific Advice:
use elevated language. our teachers have a rule to NEVER write the word “use” or “utilize.” we literally used to lose major points if we wrote those. instead of saying “the author uses..” state what the author is more specifically doing (ex. this demonstrates... [author] manipulates...). here’s a list of 50 verbs to review if you want. I have a mental bank of like 4 or 5 I just reuse (characterizes, develops the idea, illustrates, etc.).
read the books. depending on what type of student you are, there’s a good chance you’ve slid through class without doing the reading. this. is. not. the. time. to. do. this. put in the work now because future-you, when you’re sitting in the exam trying to remember what you read on sparknotes, will hate you for not doing it.
speaking of sparknotes, use it! and any other review material you can find! know your reading inside and out and read summaries to get a different perspective and new refresher. hell, i print mine out and highlight it to review.
create a study guide!! if it’s a play, break down the play by scene. know the important motifs and have textual evidence for them to refer to. message me if you want to see the one my teacher gave me to fill out. it’s not mine so I didn’t really want to post it willy nilly.
key things to know about the content: time period, main themes, author background, cultural references.
you must include quotes in the essay. memorize them. reference famous lines everyone knows. hell, create a quizlet. whatever you gotta do.
RUBRIC BREAKDOWN
know it. live it. love it. its all that matters. who cares if you discovered some literary equivalent of the cure for cancer? if you don’t hit the rubric, you don’t get the points. (i can’t find an updated version of the rubric right now, try asking your teacher if they haven’t already given you a copy. message me if you need help finding it because I know I have a spare one in my locker)
written by a grader for teachers, good source. most of the stuff below is from this source.
Criterion A Language:
accuracy. you’ve been in school and studying the play for a while, you know where you fuck up. do you always misspell the authors name? it’s time to finally get it right and double check. know your weaknesses and know how to fix them.
sentence structure. saw a good piece of advice: full stops every two lines, max.
Criterion B Message:
avoid repetition. examiners notice it a mile away and its irritating, boring, and indicates you haven’t planned for the essay.
you need direction. does the argument go somewhere? this ties back to planning.
support. do you have evidence? does it support your main argument and is it relevant?
organization. again, planning. you should be able to summarize in a short sentence the structure of your essay (ex. “I start with A, contrast with B, then show how C is the result.” if you can’t, that’s a bad sign and you need to work on it.
Criterion C Format:
right format and register. i don’t have much advice for this one i can explain without being specific, just review the source above if you need more help.
ESSAY STRUCTURE
Introductory Paragraph
motivator - address the question or statement
background summary - discuss background info for the text and author
thesis - i’m assuming you know how to write a thesis if you’re an ib senior, but just in case you’re weaker at it, check out advice here. You need to be able to write a strong thesis. This can not be emphasized enough.
focus - how will you prove your thesis? state your arguments here
Body Paragraphs - aim for 3 or 4
topic sentence - its the thesis of your body paragraph. don't forget it (plus i find it helps me to get started)
evidence - quotation or description. try to embed these! it’s easier when reading and doesn’t sound as clumsy. how to embed quotes
analysis - focus on literary techniques and embed key literary vocabulary (this allusion demonstrates...)
link - tie back to the topic and connect to your thesis. like I said in the general tips section, the essay is a web, but everything ties to the center and is connected. do not introduce new arguments or irrelevant information.
if you have multiple pieces of evidence, I usually repeat evidence then analysis and then link again instead of listing all of my evidence at once. this way, if you run out of time, you still get points for analysis and it sounds smoother overall
Concluding Paragraph
Restate thesis using different words - do not simply restate
Provide a brief summary of your arguments - i think of it like an elevator speech for your essay. Remind them why your essay kicks ass.
Final sentence - time for the mic-drop! give the reader a reason to feel satisfied after reading and like they have a new perspective after reading
you’ll do amazing!! make sure to do practice papers and aim high. you’ve got this :)
Sources: (check out for even more in-depth advice)
Our 12-page long guide & FAQ to the Group 4 IB IA is finally done!
Hello everyone!
Myself, mythic_fci#1141 , Sevro#6174 , Hurin Thalion#6970 , kallak#4644 , and kasey#6439 from the IB Discord collaborated to make a FAQ & general guidance document for the Group 4 IA.
We talk about stuff like finding an IA topic, keeping below the 12 page limit, handling data analysis & evaluation, and way, way, more. We also answer questions about originality, formatting, and page count we get almost daily.
It's written based on personal experience, others' experiences, and most importantly, the official IB exemplars and teacher support material found on the IB website. We literally wrote an EE's worth (4736 words) of IA advice, so we hope you learn something useful from it!
Link to the Guide
Please help upvote it on Reddit for maximum visibility! This post contains a compilation of all the IA discord resources as well.
Link to the Reddit Post
If you have any questions, suggestions, or concerns, we would be more than happy to listen—dm me through tumblr, reddit, or on the IB discord (discord.gg/IBO)! :D
Hello! As a fellow IB student, I just wanted to ask you a few questions, if it's not a problem: what subjects do you study? What do you write your EE about? How are you still alive? Sadly, I have no self-control (or common sense), so I am currently suffering from sleep deprivation. Hope you do better than my dumb self!
Hello, love. I am happy to answer your questions.
SubjectsI am currently in IB Lang A1, IB History, Theory of Knowlege, AP Physics, AP Calculus AB, Health Sciences, and Spanish Lang. 3.
EEI am writing my Extended Essay on the following topic: “The Effect that Modern Popular Culture Has on the Progressive Treatment of Psychological Disorders”. It’s certainly a mouthful, but it’s subject to shorten as we actually start the research and formatting of the paper.
How are you still alive?It’s difficult to manage IB along with outside circumstances, commitments, and extracurricular activities, but I live by endeavoring to stay on top of the work as much as possible and talking to my teachers about anything that conflicts with the work itself. I also talk to my IB peers and ask questions. It also helps to be friendly with your fellow IB students because help is necessary to make it through such a rigorous course of study.
Advice
GET YOUR WORK DONE EARLY.
ASK QUESTIONS. Don’t be afraid of looking silly or “dumb”. (The fact that you’ve chosen to take this course of study leads me to believe that you aren’t dumb, love.) Take notes and place question marks next to what you’re confused about, and leave no questions unanswered before leaving the classroom.
PLAN AHEAD. Look out for absences like doctor’s appointments and sports events and holidays and get that work turned in before the deadline and get all of the work you’ll be missing beforehand. Falling behind is easy. Catching up? Not so much.
ALLOW YOURSELF TIME to wallow in self-pity and hate that you’ve chosen IB, but don’t allow it to consume you. Give yourself five minutes before getting back into your work. Don’t forget to be positive, as well. IB is hard, but 100% conquerable.
DON’T BEAT YOURSELF UP over perceived failures. Self-loathing will not turn your bad mark into a good one. Deprecation will not make anything better. Instead, let that disappointment drive you to do better the next time around.
SLEEP. I cannot stress this enough. It is a myth that you can “catch up” on sleep. Once that sleep is gone, it’s gone. The damage is done. A grade is not more important than your health. Sleep.
No self-controlDo things that improve your self-discipline. That’s truly the only advice I can give.
And finally, you aren’t dumb, love. You’ll do fine. You’ll come out of this okay. You can do this.
I’ve gotten some PMs with questions about taking the IB Programme in high school and how it’s now affecting me in art school now so I thought I would finally do a Post(TM) about it. Again, everything I’m about to talk about is based on my personal experience but please feel free to talk with me if you have any concerns about this post. I want to put myself out there and help others if I can since I had so much support getting to where I am now. If you have any other questions about art college or the likes, please feel free to shoot them my way 💘
WHAT IS IB?
The International Baccalaureate Programme (aka. IB) is a “fast paced” program for middle and high school students that’s supposed to promote students to think independently and critically. At my school, there was a set courselist, with one or two elective choices. Some courses were Standard Level (SL) and some were Higher Level (HL), which certain post secondary schools allow to swap out for first year credits. IB is different in different schools and different countries though, but overall, It’s meant to be an alternative and more challenging high school experience.
IB + ME:
I can’t say I had the most positive time in IB or anything since I was also REALLY struggling with mental health at the time and had hated every moment I was in high school. But upon reflection, there really were things to be gained from the experience. Pros and Cons.
I was in full IB until second semester grade 10. At that point, I was already thinking about studying art after high school, but was afraid to commit to it entirely because there was so much pressure from my parents and peers to go into a “respectable” career and get a “high paying job in science or math or business” or something. So I dropped to partial IB as a compromise and took IB math, Art and HL English, as well as regular Ontario Uni level Physics, Bio, CompSci, etc etc etc.
DO YOU USE ANY OF THE STUFF YOU LEARNED IN IB CLASSES IN ART SCHOOL?
No.
I have an official credit for Grade 12 Advanced Functions but the most math I do now is occasionally multiplying by 12. Could I solve a quadratic equation now? Don’t even know what that is anymore.
BUT! You never know what could inspire you. I was so interested in quantum physics, I’m literally writing a story about parallel universes. Learning is almost always good.
LET’S TALK ABOUT IB ART FOR ONE HOT SECOND:
I did find IB Art incredibly applicable and helpful because it taught me how to keep a sketchbook and understand the creative process, neither of which you actually directly get graded on in the animation program at Sheridan but is personally tremendously beneficial for developing ideas and creating pieces. Now I draw thumbnails for everything I do. And I appreciate them!
Even if you walk away from IB Art with the most garbage collection - no sweat, it’s only high school and it’s learning the process of creating art that is so so important! When I applied for Sheridan Illustration (the same year I was accepted into Sheridan Animation), I basically repeated a simplified version of the IB Art process and was accepted into the program with a portfolio score of 80, with 9/10s in Process/Ideation, Media Exploration and Sketchbook, which you REALLY focus heavily on in IB Art.
I would highly recommend taking IB Art if you are thinking about doing art after high school, or doing art in general.
BEING AN ART STUDENT IN IB:
I hate that Art Kids(TM) have a bad rep. People always assume that art is a dead end career and we all starve and we’re all morally questionable people but that’s not true at all!
But being that Token Art Kid in IB (outside of IB Art class) actually made me feel awful back then. I was always kind of an odd one out. That’s not to say that people weren’t nice or anything. But there was so much pressure to not go into art. Ever since I was a kid, I’d always wanted to be an “artist when I grow up” but I found that in high school, I’d often say that I was “interested in art but was also thinking of pursuing an alternative career in this and that” because I was afraid of being looked down on in an environment where everyone around me wanted to do something “brainy”. Admitting that I wanted to do art almost felt self depreciating because everyone else was actually going to get a “real job” and live “better lives”. But that’s totally not the case! I ended up spending a lot of time taking a bunch of science and math courses I didn’t really like to maintain my twenty thousand irrelevant Back-Up Plans.
IB AND LEARNING SKILLS:
I think no matter what you do, having good organization and time management skills is always going to be so so important!
Sheridan Animation is such a loaded program, you really have to try to schedule your time well. I used to complain about the IB courseload but I honestly feel like Sheridan Animation is so much more laborious. We had 8 courses + an elective last semester, each about 2 to 3 hours a week, plus all the time you had to put into doing homework and living life and sleeping.
Even though IB is meant to keep you busy to force you to learn good work ethics, I don’t think forcing someone to work harder necessarily means that they are going to learn how to manage their time. I was 100% unmotivated and depressed and self destructive in high school. I was in IB for four years but I always studied the night before an exam up until the very last one. And when I graduated and moved out, I realized that I was a mess and I had to change, and it was that self realization was what motivated me to learn how to slowly put together my life back together. Only then did I start taking steps to curate my life and learn how to plan ahead and schedule my week and get! stuff! done!
So all in all, maybe IB does put you in an environment where having good learning skills will benefit you, and maybe that will motivate you to learn how to maintain a good work ethic. But I really do think skills like how to study and learn and live life is something that you have to be aware of as an individual and want to work towards. Being in IB may help with those things, but it isn’t going to suddenly grant you powers to study two weeks in advance and keep track of all your assignments in a way that works for you. You have to learn to do that yourself.
HL CREDITS (AT SHERIDAN):
Not all schools acknowledge HL credits. Sheridan claims to. I know people in Sheridan Animation who have used their HL credits at other universities before coming to our school but I’ve never spoken to anyone at Sheridan who has used them in a Sheridan program.
This is lowkey a call out post @ Sheridan, but I have tried applying for advanced standing with my IB HL credit to replace my electives twice, but neither time went through. They claimed to not have the proper paperwork, and when I paid for IB to send my transcript to Sheridan, it was never found (despite there being a confirmation email from IB that it had been sent to the right place) so I was unable to get it processed due to a lack of paperwork. And when I tried to follow up through email, I was ignored.
(If you have successfully gotten your HL credit request to go through at Sheridan, please PM me and tell me how :’^))
I do know for a fact that even if you could, in theory, replace some electives at Sheridan with your HL credits and as long as you still had enough courses a semester to consider you a full time student, you would still pay the same amount of tuition. You would just be less busy.
SHOULD I TAKE IB THEN?
Honestly, it’s up to you and your own life!
I know I rambled on for so long only to give the most passive and watery advice but I think you should do what you believe is best for you! Just be aware that whatever you choose is going to lead you to a different future and all your actions will have consequences (good or bad or either) and be okay with that.
Sometimes, I wish I didn’t do IB so I could have more free time to draw. Maybe if I drew more in high school, I would have gotten into Sheridan Animation a year earlier. But if I did that, I wouldn’t have learned how to paint in Art Fundies and have the friends I do now and live with people I love. Everything I’ve ever done up to this point has brought me here and I wouldn’t change a thing about the past so all I can do is work on making my future, you know :))
If you’ve made it this far, thanks for reading. Good luck!
Hi rivkah! I am on my first semester of the ib and I have failed. I had exams for the teacher to set my term grade and I barely passed. And I know my grades for this semester don't really matter or affect my final grade for the ib but they are the one who are going to give me my predicted grades and I am panicking. I really want to get into a good uni and I have to get high predicted grades for that
Hey sweetie! Correct me if I’m wrong, but it doesn’t sound like you’ve failed just yet. It sounds like you’ve failed according to your vision and your expectations, but in reality you have some wiggle room the bounce back.
“I barely passed” is still passing, but it does tell me you need to improve. But, at the very least, you passed, right? So now you just need to teach yourself some good study and improvement habits.
I’m going to give you some links and tips for how to turn around what you’re struggling with. I’m going to also ask that, if you’re comfortable, you come off anon and message me if you need anything in the future. I don’t judge and I don’t bite.
If you don’t understand a concept
Here’s how to self-study by @iwillbeapolyglot
Here’s a bunch of subject resources for self-teaching
ask your teachers for help; be open about communicating how you struggle and they should admire your honesty and help you
look for tutoring hours with said teachers
look for extra credit opportunities that also help you study
form a study group with classmates
If you don’t study effectively
Here’s a test to determine what kind of learner you are
Here’s my post on how to make studying fun for each type of learner
Here’s a post on learning types by @aescademic
How to study for finals by @little-red-studies
If you failed a test
Here’s my post on raising your grades and de-stressing
How to study by @samsstudygram
See what you got wrong. Create a study guide that includes those concepts that you need to study more.
Don’t study what you already know! People want to constantly repeat what they know, but you should focus on what you struggle with.
Create practice tests for yourself in the future.
Always do test corrections if you can!
If you have too much to do
How to organize your work by priority by @howtomusicmajor
Productivity increasing by @brbimstudying
How to not burn out by @neuroticmedblr
If you’re panicking
Here’s another post from me on dealing with IB
IB is difficult and it’s normal to go through rough periods.
Don’t give up and don’t devalue yourself as a person.
You are more than your grades.
If you want your grades to improve, work hard and be willing to try new things. Give it your best effort, that’s what’s important.
If you ever need anything, my messages and ask-box are always open xoxo
