Your challenges in IB? I WANT TO HELP!

Scroll to see replies

Hey guys!

I am Tiffany! I graduated high school in Australia 2 years ago doing the IB (43/45) and I am studying at uni now. I have been doing IB tutoring after I graduated but now I would like to help more students! I am thinking of writing some blog posts about study skills and on my experience and would want some ideas from you!

So these are my questions

1. What do you find the most challenging in IB? Did you manage to cope?
(I know everyone has got 100 problems cos this is IB so you can list as many as you want :tongue:

)
E.g. drowning in work, struggling to manage your time well

2. Say now you have a past IB student to give you some advice, who could help solve your biggest challenges in IB, what help would you ask him/her for?
(this is hypothetic and you can say 'I wish there was someone to help me with getting my deadlines/timetable sorted', someone who can motivate me etc )

Thank you and I will really appreciate your response. I will read and reply to every one of them! If you don't have time to answer my questions you can also just ask me any questions about IB/ study skills and I will try my best to help!

Wish you all the best in IB!

Woah! 43! That's amazing.
1. I find it hard to like find the most effective ways of studying. Thankfully, I've got no issues about time management, since my EEs and my IAs are over. Woo!

2. I wish there was someone to help me study, share some super specific and awesome tips about acing IB. Furthermore, I wish someone's there to guide me through what IB wants to see in my IAs, TOK, EE. To be honest, some of my teachers do not exactly know what they're doing in terms of IAs.

Reply 21

tiffanypangyan

Original post by Lea22

Hi Tiffany,

I joined IB and I find it very stressing to catch up with Geography HL.
Any tips on how to study geo? Any helpful sites, etc...
Should I be memorizing stuff from the book or.,..?
Pls help me!! It's really important because it's my HL subject.

Hey Lea! When i was doing Geog, I wrote notes according to the syllabus points. i am not sure if they have changed the syllabus but back then, they have points like 'Explain the effects of El Nino' and I just wrote down the explanation in my notes. I typed up my notes for Geog because the notes were too long to write and I could include diagrams and graphs which are very important esp when they ask you to describe and explain the trends.

Case studies and examples:
--- Include detailed notes for case studies (describe the situation of the country, what the policy is, what it does and evaluate the effectiveness).
---Often include brief examples in your notes as well even though the syllabus didn't say you need a case study.
---Use RECENT examples and case studies! I remember that it is stated in the syllabus that the oldest examples you could use should not be over 10years ago (sth like that you should double check :smile:

)

Also, rmb the definitions of key terms e.g. define indices of infant mortality, education, nutrition, income etc in disparities.

Identify and explain the changing patterns and trends:
There are always questions in the exam asking you to describe patterns and trends with graphs/diagrams provided. Make sure you practise with those questions because those are easy marks!

Essay questions (long questions):
Not only it is important to know the content well in order to answer the question well, but clear logic and structure are also essential. The examiner would be pleased when he/she enjoys reading a structured answer and would probably give you a higher mark because of a better impression! So structure your essay before writing!

Useful links:It includes recent news that you could use for case studies for each syllabus point:http://ibgeog2009.wikispaces.com/Disparities_Wealth_Developmentdetailed notes:http://greenfieldgeography.wikispaces.com/Population+changehttp://www.thegeographeronline.net/2-disparities-in-wealth-and-development.html

It is a lot of information to learn in geography so make sure you make your notes interesting! Find case studies and data that interest you; watch Youtube videos about it if you don't like reading much. Google diagrams/graphs/pictures and put them in your notes so that you could visualise the situations better. Reading plain notes is too boring ;P Moreover, it seems like they are fake stories if I don't actually see real pictures. It will help your memory as well!

Hope it helps! Good luck for you study! :smile:

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 22

tiffanypangyan

Original post by Hamartia

Which subject combination did you take?? :smile:

Edit: Just seen you've already posted that. Any tips for English A SL?

Hey!

In English A, the assessments are very distinct and I made sure that I knew very clearly what the examiner wants.

For the oral presentation, prepare your speech well; rehearse a few times using a timer and the tools you are going to use (like powerpoint). Don't write the whole speech in the cue cards but only dot points. Keep practising until you know what you need to talk about when you look at the points. Get creative! Make your own diagrams/interact with your audience/do a short monologue etc to present your ideas to make your presentation interesting!

For the oral commentary, it is not possible to write out the whole speech and it is not the point of the exam. It is testing your speaking skills WITHOUT a prepared script, your knowledge, clarity, structure and confidence. Of course you need to know the material well. You could set some questions by yourself and practice speaking (to yourself/friend/family) about them. Get used to speaking beforehand! Speak slowly with confidence and try your best to eliminate the useless meaningless words like 'um' and 'like'.
I prepared the rough structure of my commentary beforehand:
-brief introduction of the passage you have got (what it is about)
-1st interesting/important point of the passage+literary devices
-2nd/3rd
-link the extract to the whole play/ link this poem to other poems written by the same poet? Why did the author write this scene/its significance etc
-conclusion
Prepare your own structure that you are comfortable with and remember that so that you know what to write about in the preparation time!

Paper 1:
I practised a lot for paper 1. I found past paper questions and did it under exam conditions at home and gave them to my teacher for feedback. Be familiar with the literary devices and their functions. Identify them in the passage and ALSO link their function to how it is useful to the author for presenting the ideas. Find annotated marked commentaries and see how people did well/ not so well. Find you own essay structure that works for you. You may prepare two different structures because they work for different styles of writing in the extracts.

Paper 2:
I did plays on paper 2. I made a huge table in Word comparing the 3 plays that I studied, e.g. the opening scene, setting, characters, use of props. You only need to identify the similarities and differences and explain why they are similar/ different in the exam. You can always find out the differences but make sure you balance out your answer by explaining the similarities as well. Many people said it is hard to find similarities but the truth is, the works won't be exactly the same; you only need to find sth 'similar' or you could talk about different devices the authors use but they are trying to achieve a similar purpose.

Overall advice:
Even though it seems that you can't really prepare much for an English exam but my secret is that you definitely can. Prepare as much as possible beforehand; you will know what to find in the extracts, the structure that you are using etc to save time in the exam. Read the marking rubic of each assessment well and make sure you did everything it says in the highest grade. Use that as a checklist when you are doing practice papers. 'Know how you are being marked and do those well' is the big secret :smile:

Good luck!

Reply 23

neelianeelia

Hello hello!

I reeeally need help wth Bio HL. I'm predicted a 6 but I definitely want to do better. A 7 perhaps!

Any study tips? Also, I've emailed you :smile:

Reply 24

tiffanypangyan

Original post by neelianeelia

Hello hello!

I reeeally need help wth Bio HL. I'm predicted a 6 but I definitely want to do better. A 7 perhaps!

Any study tips? Also, I've emailed you :smile:

Hello,
I have written a post on a website about the difference between getting a 6 and a 7 in science subjects -by knowing what you need to answer in the questions. Here's the link: http://www.ibsurvivors.com/new-blog/2016/1/24/secrets-steps-to-7s-in-hl-chemistry-and-hl-biology

6 is a really good grade and I am sure you can push it to a 7. I think its the best to look at your progress and analyse your performance; in the exams that you have done, what mistakes did you make and why? Were you not familiar with the content for that question or did you need more practice on the data-analysis questions or sth else? Think through it and start improving!

Reply 25

PrajnaTianyu

Original post by tiffanypangyan

I did EngA Lit SL, ChineseB HL, Maths SL, Chem HL, Bio HL, Geog SL

Hello! I'm a first year and I'm doing EngA Lit SL, Chem HL and Bio HL as well, do you have any reference books and websites to recommend? Another question, I'm struggling with WA, do you have any suggestion? :u: