Lynxarin Posted March 16, 2014 Report Share Posted March 16, 2014 Any tips on how and what I should/could do/study to prepare myself for the HL Maths and HL Physics? What is the best Maths HL book, the oxford one or? And is he Physics HL book by Tsokos the most preferrable as physics book?thanks for any advices Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maple Posted March 16, 2014 Report Share Posted March 16, 2014 The best math hl books are the Higher Level Mathematics (Pearson Baccalaureate) , and the Mathematics HL and SL book by Peter SmytheAs for Physics, Tsokos is preferred by the majority, but sometimes the explanations and questions are more confusing than the Chris Hamper Book. The Chris Hamper book tends to have more questions that progressively get more difficult as you work through the chapters, while the Tsokos book has quite difficult questions even in chapter 1 (which require some extra knowledge). Both textbooks are quite well written though. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lynxarin Posted March 16, 2014 Author Report Share Posted March 16, 2014 The best math hl books are the Higher Level Mathematics (Pearson Baccalaureate) , and the Mathematics HL and SL book by Peter SmytheAs for Physics, Tsokos is preferred by the majority, but sometimes the explanations and questions are more confusing than the Chris Hamper Book. The Chris Hamper book tends to have more questions that progressively get more difficult as you work through the chapters, while the Tsokos book has quite difficult questions even in chapter 1 (which require some extra knowledge). Both textbooks are quite well written though.I think the teacher has used the oxford maths hl books this far so I guess he want to continue with that book. Is the oxford maths hl book good/bad? interesting/boring? easy to understand things or not? Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lynxarin Posted March 16, 2014 Author Report Share Posted March 16, 2014 Anyone that has any more advices for how to prepare for HL Maths and Physics? Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ctrls Posted March 16, 2014 Report Share Posted March 16, 2014 In terms of prep, I don't think there's much you need to do. Being familiar with concepts you are currently being taught would be useful for maths, since you're often expected to do things like solving simultaneous equations, or quadratics as part of a longer question. For physics I suppose the same may apply, though I personally wasn't really comfortable with a lot of prior topics when I started - most concepts and ideas will probably be reviewed/retaught as you progress through the course.In terms of textbooks, see here and here for a discussion about various books for maths and physics respectively. Be wary that there will be a syllabus change starting May 2016, so it's probably best to get the updated versions when they come up (though older versions are still relevant if you can get them second-hand). I personally have found the Tsokos and Dickinson books for physics HL to be useful, though preference seems to vary a bit from person to person. For me the main thing about physics is to fully understand the topics, so I find having 2-3 textbooks to refer to useful when going over topics.For maths, I think it's mainly important to to just get a textbook with questions of varying difficulty. I've only looked at the Oxford book rather briefly, but I think it's ok. I don't really like the general structure of the book and how it's written, but the questions seem fine (albeit pretty difficult, it throws you some pretty challenging questions from the beginning). Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lynxarin Posted March 16, 2014 Author Report Share Posted March 16, 2014 In terms of prep, I don't think there's much you need to do. Being familiar with concepts you are currently being taught would be useful for maths, since you're often expected to do things like solving simultaneous equations, or quadratics as part of a longer question. For physics I suppose the same may apply, though I personally wasn't really comfortable with a lot of prior topics when I started - most concepts and ideas will probably be reviewed/retaught as you progress through the course.In terms of textbooks, see here and here for a discussion about various books for maths and physics respectively. Be wary that there will be a syllabus change starting May 2016, so it's probably best to get the updated versions when they come up (though older versions are still relevant if you can get them second-hand). I personally have found the Tsokos and Dickinson books for physics HL to be useful, though preference seems to vary a bit from person to person. For me the main thing about physics is to fully understand the topics, so I find having 2-3 textbooks to refer to useful when going over topics.For maths, I think it's mainly important to to just get a textbook with questions of varying difficulty. I've only looked at the Oxford book rather briefly, but I think it's ok. I don't really like the general structure of the book and how it's written, but the questions seem fine (albeit pretty difficult, it throws you some pretty challenging questions from the beginning).Okay, well I will at least read through both course books and try to solve some exercises during the summer holiday so I am well prepared for IB1 in the autumn. I am aware of the syllabus change. Is the syllabus changing for maths also or is it just chemistry? I don't know yet what books we are going to use but I will buy some other ones and see which one I like the most and easiest to learn from. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lynxarin Posted March 16, 2014 Author Report Share Posted March 16, 2014 Would it be a good thing to start planning and preparing the EE during the summer holiday also or is that to be too enthusiastic? Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Emmi Posted March 16, 2014 Report Share Posted March 16, 2014 Would it be a good thing to start planning and preparing the EE during the summer holiday also or is that to be too enthusiastic?Too enthusiastic. If your exams aren't until 2016, I wouldn't start until the summer between IB1 and IB2, so 2015. You haven't been properly exposed to the IB subjects yet, and trying to write an EE in a subject that you haven't started yet and have no experience with (even if you studied it before IB, the requirements are different at the IB level) would just be a waste of time as you'd have to redo most of it anyways.Use the time to relax and enjoy yourself because once IB starts you won't have many opportunities to do so. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lynxarin Posted March 16, 2014 Author Report Share Posted March 16, 2014 Would it be a good thing to start planning and preparing the EE during the summer holiday also or is that to be too enthusiastic?Too enthusiastic. If your exams aren't until 2016, I wouldn't start until the summer between IB1 and IB2, so 2015. You haven't been properly exposed to the IB subjects yet, and trying to write an EE in a subject that you haven't started yet and have no experience with (even if you studied it before IB, the requirements are different at the IB level) would just be a waste of time as you'd have to redo most of it anyways.Use the time to relax and enjoy yourself because once IB starts you won't have many opportunities to do so.okay, thank you. So I will not have to worry about the EE during the holiday then. Do you have any ideas for what I could do to prepare myself for the English HL or should I just don't worry about that and read a book in english or something like that? Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Emmi Posted March 16, 2014 Report Share Posted March 16, 2014 Would it be a good thing to start planning and preparing the EE during the summer holiday also or is that to be too enthusiastic? Too enthusiastic. If your exams aren't until 2016, I wouldn't start until the summer between IB1 and IB2, so 2015. You haven't been properly exposed to the IB subjects yet, and trying to write an EE in a subject that you haven't started yet and have no experience with (even if you studied it before IB, the requirements are different at the IB level) would just be a waste of time as you'd have to redo most of it anyways. Use the time to relax and enjoy yourself because once IB starts you won't have many opportunities to do so. okay, thank you. So I will not have to worry about the EE during the holiday then. Do you have any ideas for what I could do to prepare myself for the English HL or should I just don't worry about that and read a book in english or something like that? You could get started on reading your book list, but this is not necessary. You have TWO YEARS to complete all of this, you will have plenty of time to read during the year. Relax Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lynxarin Posted March 16, 2014 Author Report Share Posted March 16, 2014 Would it be a good thing to start planning and preparing the EE during the summer holiday also or is that to be too enthusiastic? Too enthusiastic. If your exams aren't until 2016, I wouldn't start until the summer between IB1 and IB2, so 2015. You haven't been properly exposed to the IB subjects yet, and trying to write an EE in a subject that you haven't started yet and have no experience with (even if you studied it before IB, the requirements are different at the IB level) would just be a waste of time as you'd have to redo most of it anyways. Use the time to relax and enjoy yourself because once IB starts you won't have many opportunities to do so. okay, thank you. So I will not have to worry about the EE during the holiday then. Do you have any ideas for what I could do to prepare myself for the English HL or should I just don't worry about that and read a book in english or something like that? You could get started on reading your book list, but this is not necessary. You have TWO YEARS to complete all of this, you will have plenty of time to read during the year. Relax Okay, well we haven't got the book list yet so I don't know what I could read yet. But I will at least read some of the books on the summer holiday, and of course relaxing Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.