IB Advice for a Newbie!

[IBtank]

Hi guys! I have just started my IB course( 1 week ) and yet its all good. I notice teachers go over the work faster than in the iGCSEs, but thats probably normal for this course, isnt it?

I would like to ask you, who have finished IB or the first year, to give me advice what i should do now, which will help me to get a good score ( my aim 38+, my igcses were 3A*, 5A)

Should i do things like doing notes of what we did in class, past papers or should that be saved unti the second year? I want to do as much possible, even if its just the first year, so it will help me do better in my second year and then well in my finals !

Please help, i am very motivated and i really want to do well, but a guideline or strategy would be greatly appreciated!

[MR.AHM]

Hello, I always believed a fresh start will be your way to success.

first thing congrats for your amazing grades in IGCSE. very good

Okay, IB... first you should not stick in yout mind it is a hard course or an easy one

I think you are doing diploma. So you're gonna do CAS, TOK and EE

To relief the pressure they might put on you. You have to finish CAS in the first year. over 150 hours and in the summer. And so in the second year, you can do one activity only to finish the requirement of 18 months. They will tell you about it if your school CAS advisor arranged a meeting with you all.

And Yeah, Notes will be good for sciences and humanities especially. In mathematics you should always be practising question in every topic, even its been a 3 months or more since you finished its test. You need to stick in your mind the methods to solve the problems

For more advices and in details. Please share your subjects with us and their level

I know it will be boring to revise always. And you will sometime get distracted or procrastinate. But its natural. And also don't be a workaholic. Go out, have a fresh air. Don't stress yourself

[ChikkyD]

Finish your EE in the summer. And try and get major assessment like the TOK presentation and essay at least in draft form in the summer. It will save you sleep, stress, and time

Note taking is amazing! Take as many notes as possible in Biology and History. This will definitely help you You can later compile these into revision notes. Past papers won't help you too much right now because you've only just started, however Question Bank will help you find questions on topics you HAVE covered. It's essential that you do questions constantly, especilly for maths.

I wish you all the best

[MR.AHM]

Finish your EE in the summer. And try and get major assessment like the TOK presentation and essay at least in draft form in the summer. It will save you sleep, stress, and time

I wanted to say this. But don't know how come I forgot it

Seriously, this is the most essential thing to do... So that in the next year you could focus more in your subjects and preparing your self for the Exams

Also. Try to finish you science Internal assessments in the first year. And in the second year you can only moderate it between time and another. To make it better and ask your teachers to check it always.

[IBtank]

Hello, I always believed a fresh start will be your way to success.

first thing congrats for your amazing grades in IGCSE. very good

Okay, IB... first you should not stick in yout mind it is a hard course or an easy one

I think you are doing diploma. So you're gonna do CAS, TOK and EE

To relief the pressure they might put on you. You have to finish CAS in the first year. over 150 hours and in the summer. And so in the second year, you can do one activity only to finish the requirement of 18 months. They will tell you about it if your school CAS advisor arranged a meeting with you all.

And Yeah, Notes will be good for sciences and humanities especially. In mathematics you should always be practising question in every topic, even its been a 3 months or more since you finished its test. You need to stick in your mind the methods to solve the problems

For more advices and in details. Please share your subjects with us and their level

I know it will be boring to revise always. And you will sometime get distracted or procrastinate. But its natural. And also don't be a workaholic. Go out, have a fresh air. Don't stress yourself

Thank you for your help first of all ! Our CAS coordinator has told us how important CAS is and that you need to reflect/analyse all stuff in a diary etc...but a friend of mine who finished IB said that you dont need to do that really, and you can fake your CAS hours and nobody will care, but i guess you wouldnt advise me to do that do you have any ideas for service, which is going to be interesting and not boring.

I also do not really get, how the 3 bonus points are combined? Is it one for tok and one for EE and the third one is for...?

[ChikkyD]

It all depends whether you get an A or a B or a C etc in TOK/EE. Two A's gives you 3 points, so does an A and a B. 2 B's gives you 2 points. And a B and a C give you 1 point. You also must pass at least one. So if you were to get an E in EE, you HAVE to pass TOK AND get higher than 28 points in your subjects to be awarded a diploma

[ninety]

Finish your EE in the summer. And try and get major assessment like the TOK presentation and essay at least in draft form in the summer. It will save you sleep, stress, and time

I wanted to say this. But don't know how come I forgot it

Seriously, this is the most essential thing to do... So that in the next year you could focus more in your subjects and preparing your self for the Exams

Also. Try to finish you science Internal assessments in the first year. And in the second year you can only moderate it between time and another. To make it better and ask your teachers to check it always.

Finish your EE in the summer. Definitely.

Also Internal Assessments are very important. Science IAs are good because you're allowed to do multiple IAs, but only submit the best ones.

Some advice on Science IAs from me (sorry, I copied it from another post because I'm too lazy ):

If you put in the effort for your IAs, especially in science subjects, you can have as much as 24% of your final grade secured before you even get into the final exams. For example, in all the sciences, you do a variety of IAs throughout the course. The grades of the best 6 IAs that you've done are taken, along with the grade of your Group 4 Project, and also the grade of your Manipulative Skills (lab safety, techniques, etc.) to give a score out of 48. This score accounts for 24% of your final grade. Right now I've got 44/48 for Physics, so I've already secured 22% of my final Physics grade.(Edit: And this means I only need to score 60~% in my final papers to get a level 7!)

Also, try to get CAS out of your way as soon as possible. I fulfilled the CAS requirement before the summer, so now I don't have to worry about finding CAS activities and concentrate on my studies this year.

And the number of bonus points you get depends on how well you did in TOK and in your EE. Refer to this table and you'll understand: http://liakatas.org/...tokmatrix_e.gif

Edited September 8, 2011 by ninety

[MR.AHM]

Hello, I always believed a fresh start will be your way to success.

first thing congrats for your amazing grades in IGCSE. very good

Okay, IB... first you should not stick in yout mind it is a hard course or an easy one

I think you are doing diploma. So you're gonna do CAS, TOK and EE

To relief the pressure they might put on you. You have to finish CAS in the first year. over 150 hours and in the summer. And so in the second year, you can do one activity only to finish the requirement of 18 months. They will tell you about it if your school CAS advisor arranged a meeting with you all.

And Yeah, Notes will be good for sciences and humanities especially. In mathematics you should always be practising question in every topic, even its been a 3 months or more since you finished its test. You need to stick in your mind the methods to solve the problems

For more advices and in details. Please share your subjects with us and their level

I know it will be boring to revise always. And you will sometime get distracted or procrastinate. But its natural. And also don't be a workaholic. Go out, have a fresh air. Don't stress yourself

Thank you for your help first of all ! Our CAS coordinator has told us how important CAS is and that you need to reflect/analyse all stuff in a diary etc...but a friend of mine who finished IB said that you dont need to do that really, and you can fake your CAS hours and nobody will care, but i guess you wouldnt advise me to do that do you have any ideas for service, which is going to be interesting and not boring.

I also do not really get, how the 3 bonus points are combined? Is it one for tok and one for EE and the third one is for...?

Well, I advise you to fake People who finished IB gave me the same advice. Sometimes, you need to make up things. For example in the summer many of my friends faked their activities. They made new ones which doesn't exist and they made a new e-mail to do the supervisor review... when you can't find an activity do this...

Also a service will be teaching young kids in your school in your free time. I think you have free lessons in your school for IB students.

And for the extra 3 points check this EE/TOK matrix

[dessskris]

regarding the faking CAS hours, I'm TOTALLY against it so I might be biased here but please do NOT fake them unless you are desperate or paralysed that you cannot do any CAS activities! and my school has a good practice, the supervisor of our in-school activities are teachers so we can't fake the activities. and for out-of-school activities we need to provide email address and phone number of the supervisor and my CAS coordinator will be checking with them. plus we still do the hard copy forms so we need people to sign off our forms and write some evaluation. please don't fake them... I look totally down on people who do that.

back to topic, the most important thing you can do right now is probably taking notes in class and always listening to your teacher.

when there is an assignment, do it asap! don't procrastinate.

another good thing is to build good relationships with your teachers. it will become useful later when you need someone to write you reference. AND good predicted grades.

past papers can be done a bit later, like in your second semester or so.

think about your EE topic early. start them early if you can. choose your TOK essay topic early and do some research on it.

don't hang out too often during the weekend. probably a stupid advice but that will happen later.

also if you need help with anything come to this site, you never know how helpful some of the people can be.

and, believe that you can do it.

good luck.