Popular Post Sandwich Posted February 2, 2014 Popular Post Report Share Posted February 2, 2014 A collection of all the tips that have been posted on the Revision Sessions page since it was started in May 2013 Quick flick to the right spot:General TipsBiologyChemistryEnglishHistoryLanguage BMathsGeneral Tips26/3/2013 Tip of the day: If you're stuck on how to revise for any of the 3 sciences, the best place to start is at the beginning of the syllabus... the SECOND best place is actually to practice doing loads of Paper 1s! Use them to test yourself on lots of topics quickly and reveal where there are gaps in your knowledge. Leave papers 2 and 3 for closer to the exams.27/3/2013 Tip of the day: for all you stationery fiends out there who love nothing more than ultra-organised revision notes, treat yourselves to a set of plastic display books. Change the order of your notes whenever you want, cover pages in post-it notes you can rip off in an instant and glide smoothly along as you flick through the pages of your hard labour in glossy plastic high definition. Is it worth it? Why, yes, yes it is.29/3/2013 Tip of the day: for subjects like Maths and Chemistry amongst others, don't forget that in the exam you're given a data booklet to use. It's well worth learning what equations and information are in there... and making sure that anything you need which isn't goes on your list of important things to memorise!1/4/2013 Tip of the day: today we're tackling the age-old question "Should I do past papers??". Our advice is that it depends 100% on the subject. Some subjects where it's just memorising facts such as Biology lend themselves best to working through the syllabus. Past papers for Biology become easier with knowledge rather than practice, and a comprehensive knowledge comes only from the syllabus - so leave practising papers for your memory test at the end!In other subjects like Maths, past papers should form a big portion of your revision from the beginning.Not every subject is so clear-cut, however. Our rule of thumb is that the more APPLIED knowledge a subject has, the more doing past papers early on will help you. Chemistry is a good example of a subject where just learning the syllabus won't necessarily help you do the calculations! On the other hand, past papers alone might not cover every aspect of the syllabus thoroughly or efficiently. You should make sure with these subjects that you plan a decent chunk of 'past paper time' into your revision schedule as well as the time it will take to re-cover the syllabus.2/4/2013 Tip of the day: Remember back when you were little and you may or may not have had a sticker chart with shiny stars on to reward you for good work?Well it may sound a little crazy, but we promise a sticker chart > a boring old checklist 100 to 1! Divide your work into topics so you earn a sticker roughly every 2 or so hours and watch your to-do list grow into something much more interesting to look at... and bizarrely much more motivating to achieve! The main trick is to make sure you buy the right stickers. Paperchase novelty stickers are always great fun, but if it's the golden stars which still motivate you to achieve, don't worry, we agree - some classics never die!6/4/2013 Tip of the day: If those long blocks of revision are feeling overwhelming, try breaking them down into smaller sessions with goals after each one. So 20 minute targets, finish 1,2,3,4 in the first one, then 5 minute break, then solve a problem on 1,2,3,4 in the next 20 and repeat.I find physical activity and a change of atmosphere between morning and evening revision helps. So I'd start in the library in the morning, walk to the cafe after lunch and finish off there etc.5/5/2013 Our top tips for last minute cramming: try and do it the night before! If you do it that morning, chances are you'll be so anxious about the exam that it won't work. Cram all the difficult details the night before and refresh it in the morning. If you can get somebody to test you or test yourself, that really helps cement it into your short term memory - this is 100% the best thing you can do.Let's face it, some facts just have to be crammed - so do it well! If you're worried you might forget some key facts, try to write them down the moment you're allowed to write in the exam to take the stress off yourself.2/11/2013 Our top tips for surviving November:1. Plan your remaining revision very carefully around your exam timetable. Don't just focus on the next exam, look at what comes after that as well. Even if it hurts you very much to spend half a day studying for an exam which isn't the one you have tomorrow, when you finish that exam and realise you have a single evening to mug up on 3 different subjects back to back... you will thank yourself for having thought ahead. LOTS of people lose key IB points just because they didn't plan their revision very well and ended up running out of time just because of a timetabling issue. Don't let it be you!2. Continue to have a small amount of time just to relax, eat and sleep properly every day. It's important because otherwise the revision you do will be nowhere near as effective and you may end up running yourself into the ground, which will make you feel miserable and won't help anyone at all.3. Remember it only lasts two weeks or so. It's a horrible period of time but keep your nose to the grindstone and your eye on the prize: think of your University offer, think of the IB score you want and think how much you've had to sacrifice already in this blummin' programme to waste any of it now!!4. For all subjects where it's relevant (especially sciences and maths): past papers, past papers, past papers. Past papers? Past papers.Crack on lads and lasses, you've not got much more to go!Biology28/4/2013 "How on earth do I do data questions [for Biology]??" from Shirley.It's good to remember what data questions are trying to make you prove. They want to see that you can understand, process and draw a conclusion from statistical information, and they want to see that you know how to apply theoretical knowledge to practical situations. With this in mind:1. Describe what you see! State as much of the obvious as possible because often the marks are for the most stupidly in-your-face stuff. If something goes up, say it goes up - if it doesn't return to baseline, say it doesn't return to baseline. If it goes up faster for one set than another, say that. Read the labels on the X and Y axes - if they are levels of something versus time, then talk about levels and express things in terms of time. Basically, it's so easy to do that it's hard.2. Take the time to read and think about the blurb and any information they give to you. It will all be relevant and help you answer the question, so don't just skim over it. Read it, process it, understand it. It's worth taking your time over this bit, so try to restrain yourself from panicking and rushing if you realise it's happening, because if you get confused it'll throw off both you and your answers!3. To prepare for the exams, look through as many old Paper 2s as you can get your hands on and read the mark schemes for data questions. It really gives you a feel for the sort of stuff they're looking for you to say and how basic it is (yet strangely hard to hit the marks for!).4. Remember - they want you to apply theory to practice! The question will almost certainly relate to an aspect from your syllabus. It might be data about hormones, about photosynthesis, about ecology... anything! So even though it's all new, you WILL have some sort of knowledge about it. Once you've worked out what part of the syllabus it applies to, it'll help you to answer and interpret the data - using biological knowledge which you already have to approach a new question. So try and figure out how it's relevant to the course and what bit!Good luck.10/5/2013 Tip of the day: firstly - welcome to the weekend (nearly!) Unfortunately the fun never ceases and there's some more to do over the next few days, including preparation for the monstrous memorisation test from hell that is Biology. So, Biology-related tips here we come. First off: Biology and pictures. There are a few big things about Biology and pictures...1. You are expected to be able to draw some! Check out the syllabus if you reckon we're lying, but there are actually stacks of things where you're expected to be able to sketch it out, and they DO ask for it. As a HL student, can you "Draw and label plan diagrams to show the distribution of tissues in the stem and leaf of a dicotyledonous plant"? It's on the syllabus - so flick through all the objectives and make sure you're good with everything. They especially like to ask about S-shaped curves in ecology, macromolecular stuff like peptide bonds and so on. Diagrams of a generalised animal cell, a plant cell etc.2. Pictures can help you remember things. Especially complicated things like the heart, like the kidneys, like photosynthesis and respiration (yes, even the HL explanations!). Try turning your most difficult topics into diagrams of what's going on - they make more sense and it'll help you remember them because you can picture the drawing in your mind. May not work for everyone but it's worth a shot Oxidative phosphorylation, photosystems I and II... these things have never looked so beautiful until sketched on the back of a cereal box. TL;DR make sure you're sharp on all of the required diagrams.11/5/2013 Tip of the day: Biology again, today we will be discussing Paper 1 and specifically EVIL things they like to ask you. Also known as things you'll probably not really learn properly because for some reason they don't seem important when revising.1. Calculating magnification.2. Memorising statistics relating to the human genome project and the size of the human genome - like how many genes we have in total!3. Appreciating the relative sizes of a virus vs bacteria vs organelles etc.4. Being able to identify structures ON AN ELECTRON MICROGRAPH e.g. of e.coli. It all looks like poorly photocopied black fuzz, so try to find some pictures and get familiar with them.5. Not just knowing the cell cycle, mitosis, meiosis etc. but they'll often ask you for specifics - "what number of ____ is present at which stage?" type stuff. Try to be clear on this, especially with chromosome numbers at different stages.6. Gene stats questions - ABO blood group questions and probability of different types of offspring, it's nice to practice these questions and be sure you're doing it all correctly.They also like to ask a lot of labelling questions in Paper 1, so don't think that just because it's multiple choice you don't need to be well up on your diagrams.The best way to revise for Paper 1? Well, know the syllabus really well but also, do lots of past Paper 1s. They often ask you things in a way you don't expect that suddenly becomes difficult to answer. You might know a process overall (e.g. an action potential) but if they gave you a graph with an arrow and asked for the ion at this point, would you be able to do it? Basically they test on details, so if you've thought about those details and broken things down into stages where you're very clear on what's happening at each stage in advance - it helps you a lot with the exam itself!12/11/2013 Tips of the day today are for Biology.The main feature of Biology revision is to make sure you have FINISHED the syllabus. This means literally printing out a copy of the syllabus (or looking at it on a screen for you eco-conscious types!) and going through it point by point, making sure you can fulfil all of the criteria. If you can do that, then you're more or less home and dry.Give it to your friend/mum/dad/willing victim and get them to quiz you on the syllabus points. The Biology syllabus is the best written one of them all and you really can use it 100%.Difficult topics in Biology include things like respiration, photosynthesis and reproduction (please note this tip is for HL and SL but HL have a lot more detail, so don't be alarmed necessarily ). You have to learn a lot of processes very well - for instance, you need to know how many chromosomes are present at any given point during meiosis and mitosis, or be able to explain photosystems 1 and 2 etc.! It's good to get on top of these and one great way to do it is by drawing it out. Grab an old cereal box, chop it up and use that if you don't have big enough paper, but it'll help you a lot if you can picture the process as well as being able to describe it. This is because they'll ask you questions about particular points in the process and it's best if you've already got all the stages mentally separated out!Don't forget the weird little topics which they try to catch you out with in MCQs. Exo versus endocytosis, how to handle scales and magnification etc.!Drawings and electron micrographs. Sometimes the IB will ask you to be able to draw something out - this is always specified in the syllabus as to what you need to be able to draw, and although it doesn't always come up, if it does, you'll be kicking yourself for not having learnt it. Similarly they may ask you to label an electron micrograph (aka grey blob). This is very hard because the quality of the images is bad and none of us ever practice at school. Your best bet is to just have an idea of the general structure on a theoretical level and then employ your best guesswork. Don't get frightened by it, just think logically about what structure you know is bigger than what, what goes inside what, what ones you have multiple of or just a single one of... etc... and I'm sure you can figure it out! Hopefully you don't get subjected to one of these this year Data interpretation questions - they will ALWAYS ask you questions off the syllabus, even if it doesn't initially feel like it. So when you see some data the first question to ask yourself is: which bit of the syllabus are they on about? Once you know, you can use that knowledge in order to help you interpret the data and come up with a biological explanation for the numbers you're given. If it's data about number of chicks versus tail length of a male bird, don't get in a tizz about it, think about what you've learnt - hopefully you'll have a brainwave that you learnt about evolution and selection and realise that it's about whether or not tail length gives male birds an advantage in terms of fathering more chicks... and so on! Just think about it and try to relate it to the wealth of knowledge you've got memorised in your brain for the rest of the exam.Other than that, just explain everything out IN DETAIL. State the obvious. If there is a positive correlation, say it. If there are outliers, say it. It's just a description task so anything you think of, write it down.What to do until the exam later this week? Test yourself off the syllabus and past papers if you feel like it. Best for revision is Paper 1 - do old Paper 1's and it'll reveal areas of weakness in a very time-efficient way. The long questions on Paper 2 you should be prepared for adequately just by having gone through the syllabus thoroughly.I hope that's helpful - all the best! Feel free to ask any questions.Chemistry28/3/2013 Revision tip of the day: if you do Chemistry and have not yet discovered page 67 of the syllabus, go and check it out immediately to discover the top secret Organic Chemistry diagram! Use it to structure your revision and you'll find deducing the reaction pathways a hell of a lot easier.English2/5/2013 Tip of the day: a few thoughts on English Paper 2. The biggest part of tackling English Paper 2 is PLANNING. Once you've picked which title from the list to tackle (we suggest the one where you can identify the aspect it's asking about in the largest number of your texts OR where it's a really big deal in a few of your texts), we recommend drawing out some columns for each text.At the end of the day, Paper 2 is a compare and contrast essay: SO, think of a point in one text and then in the columns for the other texts, search your brains to see if anything in those can be compared or contrasted with your other texts. This forms the basis of your whole essay because you can make a point and slickly compare/contrast it between several texts so your structure is excellent and focussed clearly on the question.If you get stuck thinking of points, go back to English lit basics: diction, imagery, tone, structure, style, technique. Can you think of any way to tie these in or compare/contrast these between the texts in the context of the question you've picked?Also: remember you need to show knowledge! Give a bit of background information to your examples in terms of the plot/characters, mention the context of the text itself (e.g. ancient greek play, performed to audience, men playing all roles) where relevant and make sure you chuck in some quotes. You should learn at least 5 relevant general quotes per text and try to stick in a few where appropriate. Try to have quotes to show important points you might want to make: particular symbols, authorial technique, important themes and concepts - make sure your quotes are 100% gold so you'll almost definitely be able to use at least some of them in response to any question!2/11/13 "Hi there, how would you suggest I can prepare for English SL Paper 1 (the Commentary)?"We just got this message and thought we'd share some ideas as English is one of the first exams and also a common one!Firstly know that it's difficult to prepare for the unseen commentary as it is unseen, so don't spend too much time stressing about revising for it, especially if you have other subjects soon afterwards. The main things to try and have down pat before the unseen commentary are...1. A plan of action for the exam! You will hopefully have practised doing an essay or two under exam conditions before, and if not then you at least have written pretend commentaries before. A lot of it is about timing - how long will you spend reading, how long will you spend planning, how long will you spend writing? The worst thing in this exam is running out of time to conclude your essay. So make sure you walk into the exam with a structure in mind. Back in the day, I aimed to be half way through the essay by half way through my time and to start writing within 10 minutes. But everybody is different! You know how much planning you need to write a good essay, so go for it.2. A plan of action for the essay. Once you're in, read the commentary and the poetry then try to pick between them quickly because it'll maximise your time. Then make sure you have a structure to your essay, don't freak out because it's an exam. However you usually structure - whether you do it thematically, line by line, whatever, make sure you're really nailing structure for the exam.3. Literary features. Spot them, name them, explain why they're effective. Re-cap literary features. Alliteration, enjambment, similes, personification, pathetic fallacy, the whole lot. Whichever ones are your favourites, be confident with how to spot them, why they might be effective and what they mean. You win a lot of points for being able to spot them quickly & correctly in the unseen commentary and seeing as there's not much else to revise, a quick whizz through these again won't do you any harm.Really, there's not much else you can do! You've had 2 years to figure out how to write a decent essay so it's just about putting it all together under exam conditions. Often it's the first exam you'll be doing so use it to get used to the exam format - don't forget to number pages, write names and candidate numbers in the right places, hand in your mobile phone and all the rest of that jazz. The most distraught students are those who forgot to put their candidate numbers on and silly things like that, and it's most common in the first exam - DON'T LET IT BE YOU! Hope that helps settle some minds. Concentrate your revision mostly elsewhere is our advice!4/11/13 All the best for those sitting their first exams today! Now for some English Lit Paper 2 Tip-of-the-Day's!1. Know the names of all the texts and be confident you can spell the names of the authors! Not even being funny, wait until you get into the exam and realise you've been using slang names all year and don't know how many t's there are in Margaret At(t??)wood! Was it 'A' Handmaid's Tale or 'The', or was there even a word there?! Sort it out now my friends.2. As with Paper 1, make sure you're really on it with the time planning for the exam. How are you going to approach it? How long will you aim to spend planning and how long writing? Get something in your head and stick to it so that you definitely have time to write a good conclusion at the end! This is important.3. How to revise?? So, get a piece of paper and draw up a column for each text you studied. Think of a theme - death, time, beginnings/endings, main characters, diction, setting, love, symbolism, whatever - and then try to come up with points from all of your texts that you can use to compare and contrast between them. If you come up with a point for one text, go to the other texts and think what you can compare or contrast with that point.The benefit of doing this is that when you sit down to plan in the exam and do the same thing, you can often re-cycle a lot of these comparisons/contrasts and you'll have some really good things to say on account of having thought of them before! Even if the theme is different, a lot of these things are transferrable.4. Re-cap your texts briefly so they're fresher in your mind in terms of the storyline. THEN select 5 quotes from each text that you can roll out into your essay! It's important to try and inch some quotes into your essay (I would say go as far as to make sure you write an essay which will use some of your quotes!) because it shows knowledge and wins you marks. Pick quotes which demonstrate key points about main themes, characters, literary techniques etc. because these are important enough to be inserted into almost any essay you write, regardless of the prompt they give you, so that way you only have to learn roughly 5 in order to be certain that you can pop at least one of them in.This thread on www.ibsurvival.com should help you out with some further tips:http://www.ibsurvival.com/topic/9486-tips-for-writing-a1-essays-paper-1-paper-2-and-wl1/#Paper%202Good luck!History9/11/2013As requested, some tips for History Paper 3! Mostly concerning exam technique, which can be a problem for lots of people. So, our tips for how to battle through successfully...1. Make the most of your reading time. In an ideal world, you will have used the reading time to select which questions you want to do, because this is a tight exam for time!2. Keep calm and carry on. The questions are often ones which do not appear to match up directly with the topics you have studied in your History lessons. Don't be thrown off by this! Pull yourself together and think more broadly. You should still have the knowledge overall to answer the questions, it just may not be categorised in the way you're used to. As a particularly extreme example, I know people who saw a question about comparing two fascist dictators and immediately did Hitler and Stalin. Why? They'd learnt about them in the same topic and were used to comparing Hitler and Stalin. So, take a step back and think about the question and think about your knowledge outside the context in which you originally learnt the material. If you do this and don't panic, you should be able to come up with a decent essay.3. Back to back essays can cause back to back burn-out! Consider that after the first two essays your hand will be killing you, your brain will be frazzled and you'll be feeling pushed for time. One useful suggestion to combat this is that you try to at least roughly plan all three of the essays at the beginning when your mind is fresh. Once you've got them planned, the main stress is gone and you can literally just divide the rest of your time into three and go for it without worrying about coming up with the second and third essays. There are of course many ways to skin a cat (as they say) but this is the one we suggest!4. A useful thought for the exam - it is better to produce three mediochre essays than one AMAZING one and two where you ran out of time. Even if you feel like you're really strong on one essay and have less to say for the other two, don't fall into the trap of paying less attention to them. At the end of the day, even if you absolutely smash one essay, it's only 33.3% of the marks - which isn't great! Try to have a balanced approach, divide your time as equally as possible and overall it's better to get 15+15+15 than 20+10+10. If you know what I mean!All the best! Language B28/3/2013 How do you review for language B exams other than doing past exams? (Question from Tahsim)There are a few main things you need to nail for the exam... 1. Vocabulary! This seems like a lot but actually it's predictable - things like big events in your language's country (la tomatina in Spain, for example), food, current issues, culture, education, travel and so on. Look back over the topics you covered in the year and look up articles online or other sources of vocab and look up relevant words you don't know. Especially verbs! For instance in 'la tomatina' you need to know the word for 'to throw' (the tomato ) and verbs are often hard to guess. Also some staple phrases which should definitely be in your vocab - think stuff like "therefore", "despite this", "however" etc., i.e. joining words.2. Grammar. Be very confident in the basic verbs (to go, to be, to have etc.) in all the major tenses. Also the major irregular verbs. Grammar often lets people down in the writing section so even though it's boring, sitting and learning conjugations, articles and so on is important. You can also get caught out in their true/false section where they try to play tricks on you with grammar, so revising the rules is great.3. Phrases. If you can put some colloquial phrases or phrases which show off use of difficult tenses such as the subjunctive (where relevant) into your writing this will win you loads of brownie points. Come up with some generic ones in advance, check they're correct with your teacher and then memorise them. When in the exam do your utmost to make sure you can pop a few of them in for guaranteed marks!4. Formal writing. Make sure you know how to introduce and end letters - how to use formal language "dear Sir/Madam", when & how to sign off "hugs and kisses" and when to say "yours sincerely" etc. This will ensure you know how to hit the marks if you get a themed piece of writing to do such as a letter, leaflet (for these, learn how to write verbs as imperatives e.g. 'do this', 'take that' etc. as this is very handy in leaflets), magazine articles and so on. Finally - practice thinking in the language! When you're bored sitting on a bus or whatever just try to translate your thoughts from english (or your own language) into your language B. It's easy free practice and works pretty well!We hope this helps you. These posts on ibsurvival.com may also come in handy to read!http://www.ibsurvival.com/topic/13728-paper-1-tips/http://www.ibsurvival.com/topic/13587-paper-2-tips/18/5/2013 Tip of the day: sorry for the brief absence of tips guys - today, some for the writing section of Language B!The biggest part of the paper that you can prepare for IS the written section. Here are some important things you need to make sure you've got the hang of:1. Formal styles. You might have to write a letter, write a leaflet, write an essay, write a review... you've got to make sure you have the right vocabulary and the right style for any occasion. You need to know how to write a formal and an informal letter. For leaflets you often need to be able to write imperatives. Make sure you've got enough knowledge of different styles in your arsenal that you can be confident with whatever they chuck at you.2. 'Colloquial' phrases. If you can stick in some phrases which are language-specific (like in English 'it's raining cats and dogs', is said in Spanish 'it's raining jugs') it's a point winner. Also make sure you're comfortable with anything that doesn't translate directly, especially if you're taking German B and have all the word order stuff to contend with, you can't just translate directly from English --> German and make sense.3. Basic grammar. Know your tenses. Be very confident with using them. Know your cases. These should be concrete in your mind, you don't want to have any wobbles in the exam trying to conjugate something correctly.4. Difficult grammar! The BEST thing you can do is learn a few stock 'tricky' phrases in advance. Want to show off that you can use the subjunctive correctly? Learn some sentences with the subjunctive in that you can potentially use and work hard to slot them into your essay. If you learn it in advance, you know you're not going to make any mistakes executing it.5. Stick in any specific vocabulary that you know. If it's an essay about food and you know the words for 'culinary excellence', 'critics'... whatever, then show off your whole range of vocab, try to stick it in! It'll look good.6. This is simple but.. if you write a 'rough' copy of the essay, give yourself plenty of time to copy it up into neat. Do not underestimate how long it will take you!!Good luck!19/5/2013 Tip of the day: so, the reading paper for Language B. This is a tricky one to revise for as it is essentially pot luck mixed with how good your vocabulary is. Our tips for what to brush on...1. Verb conjugations. If you don't know the person and tense of a verb, you'll have problems with comprehension so as before, get it all concrete!2. Specific vocab. You'll have spent the year doing varioustopics like culture, food, travel, education... all that jazz. Go back over it and make sure you're good with key words - for health for instance, you want to know how to say height, weight, exercise, diet etc. You can't know what will come up but this is the best you can do to get close. If there's some festival of cheese making, find some key vocab for that - you never know!3. Tricky grammar. By this I mean things which can challenge your comprehension - like indirect pronouns. 'It' being used in a sentence. You need to know enough grammar to be able to identify what it's referring to.4. If you get stuck with a particular word or phrase our advice is: move on. Skim the whole thing and often you can get a feel for what it might have meant just from the context. You can even put it down as a key phrase just through the process of elimination if you understand enough of the rest of it.5. Remember, when it comes to the key phrases bit where you have to pick out the words they're referring to, don't pick too many or it'll look like you're just guessing. Try to keep it specific.Best of luck! Maths5/5/2013 Tip of the day: for those of you doing Maths SL (and to some extent also HL!) one of the least thought about areas throughout the 2 years is your calculator. HOWEVER! There are some things you need to know: 1. your calculator can save your behind in more ways than you probably realise2. the calculator isn't particularly easy or intuitive to use! But you probably knew that already.You'd be amazed how many questions can be solved with a graph, and just how useful a tool the calculator is. A lot of people probably know how to use them (so well done you guys, your work is done) but there's also a decent percentage of people who don't, and it can limit your options or lead you to make calculator mistakes (which are frustratingly pointless!).So our tip of the day is: learn to use the calculator! It's the only exam where they give you a machine to help you, so make the most of it. There are some great places online which explain it all in a very simple way which it's worth taking a long look at, either to learn from or refresh your memory. We're posting up one of them but if it's not your style, you can also find many others.http://www.prenhall.com/divisions/esm/app/graphing/ti83/index.html7/5/2013 Tip of the day: how to revise for Maths SL?Answer: past papers, past papers, past papers.Literally! Smash through as many past questions as possible. Challenge yourself to solve them, figure out how you were supposed to have done it - and repeat! There's no substitute for hard work and rote repetition when it comes to Maths. If you can solve the past questions, you'll be well prepared to try and solve the future questions.If you chunk the past papers by topic, this can help to drum it in. If you don't have access to an IB Questionbank (which will magically do this for you!) then you can just try to chunk the questions yourself. Do every past question on vectors, then every past question on matrices, then every past question on... well, you get the idea. It's more effective to do it this way by topic because it'll teach you all the possible rules, question styles and approaches for a given topic so you can consolidate the information as you go along. If Maths is all about repetition, then creating repetition in as many places as possible is only going to be good! Also it'll cheer you up after the 15th question on matrices when you finally get one right first time and feel like a genius. If you can do it quicker than that... who knows, maybe you are a genius Go do past papers!10/11/2013 A bit last minute but we figured we'd share some final tips for Maths SL! 1. For those of you who aren't otherwise occupied with History before the exam tomorrow afternoon, try to do a past paper question from each topic. One Matrix question, one Vectors question, one Differentiation Q etc. so that you've got the approach nailed (as much as it can be, anyway!). The fresher it is in your mind, the better, because at the end of the day the exams tend to roll out exactly the same types of question just with slightly different numbers and format.2. When you get into the exam, if there's any rule or process you struggle to remember, write it down ASAP. For instance, what happens to things when you differentiate them. Then, unless you have illegible handwriting(!!), you can chill out about forgetting it after that.3. DO NOT SPEND TOO LONG ON ONE QUESTION! It's hard to manage your time in Maths because you can't just divide the time by the number of questions. Certain problems will take you longer and some will be quicker to do. The best thing is just to work through the paper methodically and when you get really stuck on something, move on. You can come back to these things later if you have time, but it's much more effective to attempt later questions. If you get to the last few Qs and realise you know what to do, but only have 10 minutes left, you will be kicking yourself. It also helps keep you calm and avoid panic if you just move on from things which have your brain going "What??"4. The calculator. He is your friend. The best friend you will ever have. Never fear to make the most of the calculator, even on seemingly non-calculator questions. A surprising number of enlightening answers can be found just by graphing something, even if you feel like technically it's not a calculator question. Be comfortable with how to use it for things like matrices etc. and when you get stuck, always ask yourself: can the calculator do anything for me?!Good luck! 16 Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
candy6 Posted April 16, 2014 Report Share Posted April 16, 2014 Can you give some more tips for CHEMISTRY (HL) PLEASE? Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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