My experience with IB exams

Hi! My name is Nokwanda a student at Staffordshire Uni. I am going to be talking about exam stress and how to deal with it, from my experiences.

The IB was by far one of the hardest things I've done in my life so far. I dealt with the stress by keeping a balance between school and my hobbies.

ACTIVITIES. I made it my goal to choose activities and services for CAS that gave me a break from stress I would highly recommend that you do that too if you're able to. I did film club and litter picking which meant I was entertained by the movies but also got to walk and have fresh air with litter picking.

START EARLY. I know people always say this but it is true. For both exams and assignments. I started my revision for most of my subjects early but I procrastinated on the assignments despite them being due before the exams. Now, I would have tried to work on my assignments in chunks every day before or after my revision sessions. I also would have set up meetings with my Extended Essay to formulate my question as early as possible, after brainstorming, this would give me some time to tweak the question as I go along and collect my data.

FRIENDS. Another thing I would recommend is talking to your peers. It's amazing how much other people's perspectives can help you with something that you're working on. As well as hearing how they are coping so that you can help each other. I spoke to my friends who were good and a particular topic that I was struggling in and they would help explain it in simple terms. We would meet up during lunch and help each other with IA's and revision. This definitely helped calm my nerves as it reminded me I'm not doing this alone.

ORGANISE. I would recommend organising your study space and your knowledge. Try and revise in a clean and organised place if you're in a study space or library make sure you have everything. I've seen people quit revision sessions because they don't have their special pen. This wastes time and can affect your motivation. When it comes to knowledge make sure you have a topics list so that you know exactly what you're learning and revising. This helped me catch up with all my revision after knowing exactly what topics I struggled with. Helps keep you focused as well.

BE GENTLE WITH YOURSELF. There will be times when you do not feel like doing anything at all and it just gets very overwhelming. During this, you should listen to your body and relax. You should use this time to do something you've never done before to take yourself out of the mundane and create new memories like taking a squash class or attending a speech on a topic from a subject you've never taken before. Get creative.

To finish off I'd like to discuss the results day. It will be one of the most anxiety-inducing days of your life. But just remember that you did your best and that is all that matters. Do not punish yourself for getting below your expectations, the IB is tough. No matter what be proud of yourself for completing two years of the IB!

Feel free to ask me any questions, I'm more than willing to help

Thanks for reading!

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