How to study for HL Maths

[nicolashelou]

I have been studying alot for maths HL up to 6 hours a day, I understand all the concepts in class and at home but when I go to take the test or the quiz I completely zone out and not know how to solve anything. Can you please help me by giving me certain tips while taking the test or tips relating to studying for Maths HL.

[-._._.-]

Err practise? I don't know... I'm not sure... I always think that I know certain topics, but when I actually do questions I find that I am not sure about it. Maybe you need to learn how to recognise certain questions?

[coolkidinsight]

Fellow brethren (sorry, I haven't slept),

I would honestly recommend relaxing. Maybe you're overthinking this. I'm all for practicing, but is it really helping? You said you were studying 6 hours a day. Do you take breaks in between? Keep in mind the brain needs breaks too. It can't do pure HL math without there being consequences. I normally do math for an hour, do something else, and then go back to math. It helps me remember better, as I'm not constantly thinking about it.

Another thing to look at would be how you do the homework. Do you look at the answer first, or try to solve it on your own? Sometimes, it isn't about the answer so much as it is about the procedure. Try different ways of solving the questions. Try changing the variable names to things you remember easily. Do math while listening to music. Take more efficient notes. Take naps throughout the day.

Maybe this helps.

[flinquinnster]

Here are some similar posts that you might want to look at:

There are more, which can be found on the forum with some digging.

I guess I sympathise with you, because sometimes you practice so much and you seem to get nothing out of it come exam time. This sounds stupid, but try relaxing and as coolkidinsight suggested definitely take breaks. Also, if you keep getting stuck, make sure you refer to mark-schemes/worked examples, as they can be very useful. Although practice is good, if you aren't using it efficiently, it's not that useful. Good luck

[PK Red Joker]

My friend I went through the same experience its dreadful

I hated my guts, and was really pissed since i had studied about as much as you did

You said that You studied every day 6 hours, this helps, but as coolkidinsight said, you need breaks. One thing that helped me a lot was constantly trying to old IB exam papers, there is a site in particular that i used for physics in particular both for revision on certain sub-topics, and then for self-testing myself with the Papers it has everything for Papers, but lacks in the revision i think their still updating it, here is the link: www.xtremepapers.com

If you already know of this than I have another tip:

One thing that really helped me was to ask my teacher for any way i could review better, and my teacher in particular has certain massive IB test papers on word that are about 80 pages long, and he usually takes exercises form there and puts them on his test, this is my case, not sure you'll have the same luck.

Hope this helped

[Rigel]

A good tip for Maths HL or SL is just grinding (Try to solve the maximum ammount of exercises you can, but without overwhelming yourself). If you study too much, you could drop your grade on other subjects and that wouldn't be too desirable.