fruitlottery Posted July 31, 2015 Report Share Posted July 31, 2015 Hiii, i'm fairly new to IBsurvival and in 2 weeks ill be starting my first year of IB. I have a few questions id like to ask you guys... 1. How did you study for your end of unit tests?2. For any of your HL subjects, was it likely your teacher would use SL papers? (since some topics are both part of SL and HL core)3. Would you recommend studying from past papers from years that had a different syllabus at the time? Have you done it? Please state the subjects you used since some syllabi don't change that much! 4. I know there are several threads for this but if you feel like, list your studying strategies/tips. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
IB_taking_over Posted July 31, 2015 Report Share Posted July 31, 2015 1. For history I used study guides. Key terms and essay questions relating to the topic For math and chemistry I briefly skimmed the chapter contents and spent more time on the parts I needed some last second work on For Spanish I used flashcards (we did a lot of grammar stuff)2. I used SL Spanish papers last year for HL/SL Spanish. At my school we have SL and HL together, all of the first years take the SL practice and only the second years who test HL take the HL practice.3. If the sybabus hasn't changed that much, it should be fine. Current papers are better though. I used past papers for math. Since there was only one minor change (no matrices), I just skipped those questions. I think I used past papers for Spanish as well. Chemistry is one that I will probably use past papers on. 4. Number one thing is don't procrastinate. Find a method of studying that works for you and stick with it. For me it's read the material and take some notes. 1 Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ebu Posted July 31, 2015 Report Share Posted July 31, 2015 Hey good luck for your ib for the next two years (; This question may have been more relevant to you if you gave us the subjects you are planning to take/thinking about. 1. My method of studying varied throughout the year depending on the time I had, workload, personal issues etc but: Economics, I made a clear note for all the contents I've learnt so that I would be able to revise while making the note and reading note afterward. I also made a quizlet for key terms and went through them whenever I couldn't be bothered to do 'hard-core' revision. History, nothing much.... I semi-neglected this subject for a year so I wouldn't be of much help but in my case, I was able to score 5/low 6 by focussing during the lesson. Maths, I went through the questions in my textbook and work sheets my teacher gave me at least three times. I did constant revision and tried (whilst failing miserably) to spend one hour revising maths everyday. English B, nothing.... In my case, I'm doing HL so I had two novels to read. I just read them and found some supplementary materials online. Physics, I learnt nothing during ib1 because my teacher.... well... didn't teach me anything. My tip would be to try finish homeworks on the day they are given so that on the day before unit tests you can focus on revising for the tests. 2. Not really. 3. Depends, for instance this year there are new materials in SL Physics that weren't in the curriculum before so I do problems from past HL papers. Hope this helped! 1 Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thrashmaster Posted July 31, 2015 Report Share Posted July 31, 2015 1. I studied in the way that was right for me, which was mostly taking other papers, making a quick study guide, and then cramming that study guide up until I took the test 2. My teachers rarely gave us practice tests (I did almost all of them on my own), so when they did it was usually the correct level.3. I did a lot from past syllabi. The big one here is Math HL, since there were only two tests and a specimen paper actually created for the syllabus! Luckily, the parts that changed were very clear (old syllabus had matrices, new one didn't, for example), and so you could just skip questions that were very clearly unrelated. I at least looked at questions from old English A Papers, but I think I only took the Papers that were from the current syllabus. I did some practice problems from chem, since Paper 1s go fast anyway and chemistry doesn't change too much (though they just changed the syllabus again, so I'd probably not depend on the really old one). 1 Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dazed&Confused Posted August 4, 2015 Report Share Posted August 4, 2015 I would usually look through past papers, although I don't like relying on them too much because they kind of make you go into a safe zone in which you're comfortable with certain types of questions that come up a lot in past papers, and then when you get a different question on your test, you are completely thrown off. So thats one warning I'd like to bring up for you, is that past papers aren't always reliable, but you should definitely go through them, just don't base your entire studying on past papers. Other than that, I looked at key terms and memorised their meanings, practiced how and when to use these key terms and looked through mark schemes which teach you how your teacher and the IB expect you to answer your questions, which is one of the biggest challenges IB students face, so REALLY try to grasp on to how IB wants you to answer questions, because there is always a formula on it, (e.g, in business if they ask you for the definition of a sole trader, you would think that they just want you to write what it means to be a sole trader, but no... In order to get full marks, you also have to write advantages and disadvantages of a sole trader, which for a first timer in a test, isn't obvious when looking at the question) so its things like this that you have to know, they're usually called command terms. I can't guide you on which past papers would be relevant for you, as you're only the second year batch to go into the new IB curriculum, which I, as the last batch to study the previous IB curriculum don't have too much info on, but hopefully I answered some of your questions (although not in a numbered sequence) BUT I definitely recommend studying from past papers, if you're saying the syllabus isn't too different, just as I said previously, don't rely on them too much, as IB does change patterns, so for example past papers of 2010-2014 of a subject could be focusing on (just an example) topic 1,3,5 and 7 much more than the others, but you have no guarantee that your exam will focus on those topics too, they could focus on topics 2,4,6 and 8 more instead (I hope that makes sense). Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
\amazing/ Posted August 8, 2015 Report Share Posted August 8, 2015 1. Geography: make notes and discuss the topics with friends, do past papers Chemistry: make notes,do a lot of practice questions,read through the textbook and...MAKE CHEM JOKES BASED ON THE TOPIC (they actually do help!)Maths: practice questions 2. In my school we start our HL topics in year 12 so sorry I can't really help...but for geography SL and HL have the same paper for paper 1 and two 3. Probably not for the ones that has changed a lot? (Like geography) But I've used some for English and French. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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