1. Follow. The. Syllabus

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I cannot emphasize this point enough.

By regulation, IB should not be able to ask any content outside their syllabus. 

The reason why we are given a thick booklet with all the points of syllabus is for us to follow it!

The booklet should be available through your teacher, or online for free from IBO official website. 

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This means that if you study according to the syllabus and are able to answer each point well enough, chances are that you will get a high grade. 

Of course, IB being IB they can twist and distort the questions to make it "seem" new. But it really is not so new. You have definitely covered it as long as you have worked through the syllabus! Do not rely solely on your textbooks.  

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So bottom line is:

Make sure you can explain the points on the syllabus without looking at your notes. It should all be in your head by the time you enter your exam.

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2. Do as many past papers as you can, but treat them like gold dust. 

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One thing many people do is to directly dig in doing past papers way early (e.g. first year of IB). 

Although this might work for some, I would recommend against it. 

Ultimately, past papers are a limited consumable resource. This means that the questions loses its worth once you have gone through them because you already know the answers to it!

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So what do I recommend? 

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- Make sure you are not behind and have covered most parts, if not all, points of the syllabus. The idea is that you should be able to give a comprehensive answer to most of the questions, and not simply look at the questions and skip answering them. Then you have wasted a valuable past paper. 

- Do the first 3-5 past papers (for each subject) in an un-timed condition. Get to know slowly the style of questions they may ask and get familiar with their structure , e.g. in Paper 2 there are short-answer questions in the beginning and extended questions in the end. This is the step where you plan your time allocation.   

- Do the rest of the available past papers in timed conditions. Test out your time allocation plan and imagine you are in the exam!

- Now the most important step - make sure you go through the answers thoroughly  and be harsh to yourself. This is an opportunity to "fill in the gaps" of your knowledge. 

For instance, if you get a question wrong identify which chapter this is, refer back to the syllabus (or my notes) and identify exactly what you would have missed. 

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Ok...so when should I start doing the past papers?

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Ideally start doing the past papers 2-3 months before exams. This way there is no rush in doing individual past papers and you time to go through every little detail to troubleshoot your weaknesses. 

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3. Finish all your IAs and EE around March. 

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The reason is obvious. You need time to revise and do your past papers. 

This might be an obvious point, but procrastination is so easily done little by little, and suddenly realise that you have not much time left to revise!

So when should you start? I would say that the Christmas holiday in your last IB year is the most crucial period. This is the time to plan your unfinished IAs and EEs and get them out of the way as soon as term starts again. 

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Bonus tip 

For all extended answer questions which requires you to explain or evaluate, write as if you are explaining to someone with no background knowledge. 

This ensures you to not miss any "obvious" statements and hit all those easy marks!

Many people emphasize that maths is understanding.

And once you understand it, you can move on to the next concept.

I partly agree and disagree with this view, especially when preparing for a timed exam. 

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Maths do of course require for you to understand the concept just like any other subject, but it also requires a lot of practice just like any other subject. 

So two students with "identical level of intelligence" can both understand the concept in maths perfectly but if one has practiced more question, that student is bound to do better on exams. 

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How exactly does practice fit into solving questions? 

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Ok, this is what goes on in most people's head when solving a particular maths question.

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1. Read the question, highlight out exactly what they want us to find out. 

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2. Identify the relevant concept related to the problem, which is most often the difficult part.

 

Is it trig? Is it derivatives? Is it both? 

This is a step that requires practice (unless you are a mathematics genius who can just come up with a spot answer). Imagine, if you have come across many questions of this type, you would immediately know what route of reasoning you should take. 

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3. Write down the information you know. 

 

This step also requires practice as information are sometimes implied for you to work out, but this step is not as practice-dependent as step 2. 

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4. Attempt to solve the information you don't know. 

 

There are many different ways to solve a question, which is the beauty of maths.

But exams don't care about beauty. They care about time.

This is another step that requires practice. You need to have ideally developed an efficient method of solving certain questions that saves you time. Especially in HL, time is very tight. So find yourself error-proof shortcuts that works best for you. 

Personally I think Biology and Chemistry were subjects that were easiest to study to, but required the most time during revision. 

 

Studying Biology broadly falls into two categories:

1. Understanding and memorising facts

2. Analysing data and graphs

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1. Understanding and memorising facts

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This step requires a lot of time since you have to read the textbook, understand it in easy terms, and put the knowledge into context. 

However, I have already done that for you and these are the notes I have uploaded here to save you some time. 

I simply recommend NOT cramming for Biology because that is the worst possible way to study this subject. 

It should be a space-repetition based, i.e. you revise the material in intervals over a longer period of time. 

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If you nail this part, you will do very well on Paper 1 and on the extended answer questions in Paper 2!

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2. Analysing data and graphs

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This is the part I struggled with.

Partly because data analysis is objectively a challenge, but also because IB markscheme has a particular set of points you need to have mentioned. 

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Luckily, most of the times the points in the markscheme are fair and just so if we know how to study then this will reflect on your grades. 

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So how should I go about analysing data and graphs?

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1. Get the dimensions/axes right

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Ask yourself what is on the y-axis? What is on the x-axis? 

Are there any other dimensions that you should pay attention to?

Do not overlook the dimensions of the graph as every dimension is put there for a reason!

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2. State the obvious

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Quite often you get points for stating obvious claims, e.g. "the graph shows a positive trend". 

What happened to me while I was doing Past Papers was that I would not write down these obvious statements because they were too obvious. But it turns out you get a massive chunk of points simply by thinking simple. 

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3. Start from the obvious statements

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Now you have the obvious claims. 

This is where you need to take things further by thinking - What does this claim mean?

For instance, you have stated that there is a positive trend. Now you need to think what that positive trend means in the context of the axes of the graph, as well as in terms of the biological plausibility of the explanations that you give. 

 

Remember, you can interpret the graph in many ways, but it has to make sense biologically to be a valid argument!

 

So my overall point is that there is a structured way to study and think in Biology

Studying for Chemistry is not too different from studying for Biology. 

 

Studying Chemistry falls into two categories as well:

1. Understanding and memorising facts

2. Calculations, calculations, calculations. 

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1. Understanding and memorising facts

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As stated in the Tips for Biology section right above, I have already done the time-consuming part for you and shared it with you! 

What is left for you to do now is to read it carefully, either as a main or supplementary material. 

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However in Chemistry, there is more conceptual understanding so perhaps making your own notes is not a bad idea either, only if you think the time spent on doing the notes will justify for the amount of understanding gained. 

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2. Calculations​

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I had many friends who struggled with Chemistry Paper 2, and some questions of Paper 1, and I think the reason is because there is a tendency to overlook the first chapter "Stoichiometric relationships".

This chapter serves as a foundation for most, if not all the calculations. 

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Once you have nailed this part, then it is safe to move on to more advanced concepts like balancing reactions. 

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In essence, you should treat this part like pure Maths. It is practicing! 

For people who are not so gifted linguistically, I found that I had to put a lot of effort making notes for the all my Paper 1, Paper 2 and IOCs. 

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Language is a highly malleable, and somewhat free, subject. It is a subject where you can express your thoughts and there is no definitive set answers like Sciences and Maths. 

This means that I do not want to impose any right or wrong methods, and that mine is the only correct way, as I sincerely want you to explore yourself on how you want to study Languages. 

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However, I still decided to study English quite structurally, so please take a look at my notes for English, and judge for yourself whether this is a method that will suit you. 

1. Know the command terms!

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My teacher could not emphasize this enough, and so will I. 

The idea behind knowing command terms is absolutely crucial because it helps you to know exactly what and how to answer. 

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For instance, the command terms "compare" and "compare and contrast". 

At a glace these two seem superficially identical but are profoundly different. 

Compare = Give an account of the similarities

Compare and contrast = Give an account of similarities and differences

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This means that you do not need to waste time explaining differences when the command term is "compare"!

Command terms are easily found either in your textbook or online anywhere, so be sure to know most of them by heart!

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2. Have some real-life examples up your sleeve

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In order to really push for the higher grades, not only do you need to know the theory but also support it with "evidence". 

Now, the "evidence" here can be both from the article/extract/text you receive, but it also refers to real-life examples. Applying real-life examples appropriately will surely impress the markers and work in your favour. 

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And knowing generally about the world economy can never hurt!

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