Revising HL Biology?

This post has gone a bit long, so to sum it up:
1. REVISE REVISE REVISE
2. Practicing past-year papers is IMPORTANT
3. STUDY MARK SCHEMES
4. Commit yourself to your final revision

Lastly, try to enjoy the process. My final revision for IB was a time where I realized how fun (or the converse) some of the topics were.

Hope I could help you! Do let me know if there's anything you need clarification with or if you require any other help!
I wish you all the best for your IB exams!

Hello! I hope this isn't too late but I saw that there weren't any replies so here I am. Maybe this will help you when it comes to your final exams.
I took HL Biology for IB and it does require a lot of content memorization (as do many other subjects).
I think everyone has their own ways of studying, so I'll just share my own experiences with revision and I hope it'll help you with your revision.

a) Personally, I studied mostly from Pearson Baccalaureate's Biology textbook and memorized it through (a lot of) repetition and speaking aloud to myself. I believe that taking notes/summarizing what you're reading can also help you internalize what you study and help your thought processes as well. Do note that the IB textbooks are pretty concise already and they will prepare you for the exams well, but feel free to read extra material (just make sure it's in the syllabus!) Think about what has worked best for you in the past and go with that. (Is it memorization? Mindmaps? Group discussion?)

b) To add on to part (a) (which is basically me telling you to study), the key is (really) to plan your revision well. The content may seem to be a lot at first, but once you get down to memorizing it, it gets easier as you get better. And the important thing is not to stress yourself out by cramming! Plan your revision schedule, maybe a few topics a day. And then what you can do, is to revise the topics you did the days before to create a sort of cummulative-effect to retain what you've learnt. So for example, Day 1 would be Topics 1-3, Day 2 would be 4-5, and revising 1-3 as well. And so on. Once it gets to the point where you have covered a lot of chapters, light-read previous chapters to keep the concepts in your head.

c) Split your topics well. For me, I used to do 1-3 at one go, 5 by itself, then 4&10 as one set, Respiration&Photosynthesis SL/HL together, and so on. There are overlaps between your SL and HL chapters so studying them together makes it more efficient. If you don't want to do it chronologically, go with your favourite topics, then the easier topics, and then the harder ones. But make sure you revise well for the topics you find hard. I'm not a big fan of Genetics and Plant Science so I spent a fair bit of time on those.

d) At this point, I don't know how much more time you have till your exams, but I would say if you want to do well, you really have to discipline yourself to commit time to revising. Go to a library, remove any distractions. If your brain is dying from the revision, take a walk or change to another subject's revision. Commit yourself to your studies for these few months and you will reap the rewards(:

e) Linking to (c) and (d), not only is splitting your topical revision important, deciding how many and which subjects you want to revise in a day is another thing you will have to consider. I took Math SL so it has always been a go-to for me whenever I needed a break from the more content-intensive subjects. Pick a subject which you find easier to revise and switch to that when you get tired. That's a way of preparing for all your other subjects as well.

f) The content is only one part of preparation and I feel that practicing on mock papers and past IB questions is something that will really help you to consolidate your knowledge as well as prepare you for answering IB questions. And this applies for your other subjects as well. Ask your tutors or go google for past IB papers and questions or even your school prelim examinations and practice! You'll realize that there are a set number of varied questions that are commonly asked for each topic (not that you should ever spot), but preparing for questions that are within the mark-scheme is another way that you can revise. The good thing about IB textbooks and the IB syllabus (at least for Biology) is that they have the objectives and learning outcomes for each topic written out already, so you can just focus on studying for those objectives and questions. I cannot overly emphasize on the importance of practice along with memorizing. During my preparation for IB, I did many past year IB papers from all three timezones and I did get my 7s. Oh, and READ MARK SCHEMES. The IB awards points based on certain words or phrases and these are MOSTLY CONSISTENT with the type of questions being asked. So that is a good way of learning how to score for questions

g) Linking to (f), be familiar with the paper format. Paper 1 is MCQ and it usually is content-focused so study and you will do well. Paper 2 and 3 are a mix of content/data-based/inference questions, so you will get better at those through practicing papers.

This post has gone a bit long, so to sum it up:
1. REVISE REVISE REVISE
2. Practicing past-year papers is IMPORTANT
3. STUDY MARK SCHEMES
4. Commit yourself to your final revision

Lastly, try to enjoy the process. My final revision for IB was a time where I realized how fun (or the converse) some of the topics were.

Hope I could help you! Do let me know if there's anything you need clarification with or if you require any other help!
I wish you all the best for your IB exams!