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Advice for IB survival

Starting the IB in September and beginnning to have thoughts along the line of WHY!!!! *breathes* Nope, im sure it'll be great, but any advice or information would be appreciated.

I'm taking english, biology, psychology, and visual art at higher. Maths and spanish at standard.

basically, reassure me a little, please? :tongue:

I keep being told I'll die!

Thankyou :smile:

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Reply 1

o.Ob

The IB programme will be no doubt a challenge but you'll pull through if you use your time wisely ... not saying that you're not allowed to procrastinate every so often : P

Anyway, where are you planning to go for university and what do you plan on going into? You should do a bit of research and see what their requirements are for your IB subjects as some may require you do certain subjects and whatnot. That should essentially determine your HL courses.

Visual arts ... Brave soul. lolol.

Reply 2

~Lc~

yeaaay! art student :biggrin:

I can give you advice for that :smile:

although you might have heard this before :p:

but hey it's all true :p:

I don't know how your teacher will guide you through the course (whether they will ask you to chose a theme at the very beginning and make pieces in accordance to it, or teach you the different genres in art and let you make a few pieces and then ask you to chose a theme and what not...) but in both ways.. be careful wit you research work book! most of my VA HL class had filled up their RWB after finishing their pieces, and it looked it... plan your pieces carefully and wisely.. and have at least 5-8 pages for each piece (I know this might seem a lot, but really there is a lot you can research about for a piece, all my pieces had at least 5 pages of planning before I carried on with it..) don't make this mistake from the beginning, because after a year into the course you will regret it and try to fix it, but there'll be only so much you can fix...
about your other courses.... English should be fun if you are interested in it :smile:

you will not die! although taking 4 HLs is a hand full.. but I'm sure you can handle it :p:

it's actually exciting to hear about people starting IB :biggrin:

well now that I've done with it :p:

because I no longer have the heap load of work hehe... but yea it's gonna be great :smile:

Reply 3

miktumiktu

OK, one of the most important thing about IB is know where to find past papers
i'm from US, and our teachers seems to NOT have past papers available for us
http://thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=153008
this link contains past papers... familarize urselves w/them before taking the exam!!!
this is crucial!!!! :biggrin:

Reply 4

buzhidao

why you do 4 HLs?

my advice would be, WORK HARD 1st year so you can loosen up a little EARLY in the second year when all your internal assessments, tok and EE are due in.

Reply 5

Rachel80088

Thanks

I actually have no idea where to go or what to do at university, so i picked my subjects because..well i just liked the sound of them, plus i did some at GCSE.

We were encouraged to pick 4 higher levels, because then one can be dropped if neccessary, initially i was just going to do the three, but the brochure made out that there wasn't much difference between higher and standard art..no clue if this is actually true...

Thankyou for the link, you guys have restored faith in the IB :P God help me, I'm looking forward to it!

Reply 6

o.Ob

Rachel80088

God help me, I'm looking forward to it!

Oh jeez, I said the same thing right before going into it :tongue:

Reply 7

faiths_reality

Hey, it's hard work, and most of the time you'll wonder what you were thinking, but I dropped out half way through for a week, and couldn't stand normal school so I went back. It's kind of addictive. In my year level there is only 30 of us left and we are all really good friends and help each other out so much.

I found out it helps heaps when you type everything up. You need all your notes so don't lose them! Most important is get your EE and TOK done ASAP. If you're like me you'll be hating yourself when you leave it to the second year, and you're trying to learn the harder topics, get all you're Internal Assessment done on top of your EE and TOK, plus study for mock exams.

Do as many past papers as you can too. I even found that some questions for example from 2000 repeated themselves in 2004 exams, plus you need to know the style of answering for the exams. Once you've got that down pat the exams seem easily.

Good luck! I hope you have as much fun as I'm having, despite all the work.

Oh yeah, and if you keep any of your english essays or something from before the IB, compare them to an essay from half way through. You'll be really impressed, but most importance is practice, practice, practice!!! :smile:

Reply 8

Afterglow

I also have Bio, Eng and Psy at HL :biggrin:

My advice for those subjects.
Biology - STUDY AND REVISE. Don't just follow the syllabus detail but actually learn some background. Do your work, take notes and go to the lessons. There is A LOT of details to know in HL compared to SL but its possible if you just do your work :smile:

Psych - The class is easy (according to me) but the exam papers are actually hard. Bascially, know the syllabus. What do they want and so on. The terms (assumptions, key concepts and etc) and know as much details as you can. remember studies and when it comes to writing it all down - write down everything you know.
Eng - Er...just read the books, discuss and when you get your essays or so back, see if you can improve them in anyway (if you need it that is)

Reply 9

Afterglow

And no you won't die. If you just do your work, study and use your time well and so on, you'll be fine.

Reply 10

klarka

yeh i just finished my ib and its really not that bad...i also did 4 hl at the beginning, but then i dropped english as it was kind of pointless and i needed more free periods...but dont worry, u probably will end up doing everything last minute and it will be stressful, especially round the end of march in ur second yr just before the official ib deadline for all the internal assessment, but everyone manages somehow...its a lot of work, but i think its worth it...though perhaps tok could be eliminated in my opinion :wink:

and cas, u can do it for real like me and actually enjoy the activities or fake the hours like most people in our class, as long as u have the signatures its fine :smile:

but id recommend actually doing something, it looks good on ur ps to have lots of extracurriculars...and doing past papers is def useful, our final history exam was identical to that from 2005...so good luck and dont worry :smile:

Reply 11

talespirit

That history exam was an accident though (my teacher said there were actually 2007 papers written, just sumthing wrong with the sending and stuff). I can say that your subjects can lead to hard work (art+eng) and LOTS of reading/memorizing (eng+bio+psyc), your standards sound fine though, depending on how good you are at maths. Don't worry, its doable, by taking art, you gave yourself a lot less freetime, but its also 1 less subject to study for.

Good luck with IB, sure you'll enjoy it become a big part of your life :biggrin:

Reply 12

andy_cole2

lol all IBers are so melodramatic, chillout etc etc enjoy your first year, have lots of things to distract you tv shows etc.

Reply 13

HMSChocolate

andy_cole2

lol all IBers are so melodramatic, chillout etc etc enjoy your first year, have lots of things to distract you tv shows etc.

You think this is bad? ...wait till next year. :biggrin:

Seriously though, enjoy your first year, go out while you can!! Have fun!! You won't have the time to think about these in second year so enjoy it in the first year.

Reply 14

Bandev

andy_cole2

lol all IBers are so melodramatic, chillout etc etc enjoy your first year, have lots of things to distract you tv shows etc.

Yeah, I think that IB has the ability to produce many actors and actress' based on theb dramatics that I see everyday, eg. one of my friends predicts her death on average 5 times a day, another pretends not to know spanish oral scripts 20minutes before we did it, and then doesn't make a mistake throughout the 10min oral, off by heart, but she is a threatre arts student so she is actually an actress. :biggrin:

Anyway OP don't worry too much just try to stay on top of everything and you'll do well. I can stay pretty much on top of everything and I have 7th percentile hand writing which means that out of approx 1000 people I am the 7th slowest, so you should be okay.

Reply 15

HMSChocolate

Bandev

out of approx 1000 people I am the 7th slowest

doesn't that mean you're quite a fast writer? ^o)

Wait...no...I'm looking at this from the wrong way, aren't I?

Reply 16

Bandev

7th slowest meaning 993 of the 1000 people are faster than me, so you are right that you looking at it wrong. :wink:

Reply 17

rawkingpunkster

Enjoy the first half of your first year, but don't leave your IAs + TOK essay + EE to the last minute. Its not a pleasant experience.

But if you want the totality of the IB experience, leave it to the last min and stay up many nights working your brains out trying to complete them. :biggrin:

Reply 18