Studying for the IB Lessons

[batuhand]

Hello my fellow friends all around the world,

My question was mainly about how I should approach to study my Ib courses. I'm a person who takes everything too serious and when I can't reach my goals (sometimes I can but think I can't, I'm this kind of a psychopath) I just get mad and get stuck on an enldless thinking process of 'how am I going to succeed in the IB Programme?'. I tried several methods to study such as:

1- seperate days to study a certain subject (ex. math monday, physics tuesday ....)

2- dedicate time to study courses in a day (ex. 30 min of math then 1 hour physics then 1 hour of history)

But these didn't work, at first method I was just making summaries but I never thought it was enough and I thought I should revise my other lessons too or I won't have enough time to revise and another reason was that I couldn't find a resource to solve questions to revise after I finish my summaries. Then I switched the second method in order to cover more courses but, as I said, while I was covering more courses I was learning less and it turned into a bit mess or I wasn't applying the strategy well enough.

So my question is to every current and old IB students, 'how do you guys study for the lessons to increase your overall performance and are there any resources that anyone can advise for solving questions similar to IB question types ?'.

Thanks in advance

 

[kw0573]

Hi and welcome to IBS!
I hope you can clarify your question. "Taking everything too serious" only describes an attitude, which is subjective and intangible. For example to answer "What are your study habits", a proper answer is (not saying I recommend this) "Study 2 hours a day. I have the solution manual beside me as I study. I add 2 30 minutes in between". We can't change who you are (takes everything seriously), but we can help with what to do. With that in mind, please describe 1) what you do to study by day or by subject 2) your goals.

[iblikecole]

Hey! Contrary to popular belief, you shouldn't be spending hours making notes. It makes more sense to study a topic and directly start practicing problems, even if you are a new student. The concept stays in your head longer!

[penguins]

hello again

I wanted to start with thanking you guys for your answers,

This is my second year in the diploma program and my exams will be in November. My goal is to get into a good university which I had narrowed my options to 4 and for this goal I have to get mostly 6's and 7's and also have to learn programming but the hard part lies beneath there. As I said I take things serious and if I can't do it I get mad at myself because I'm a perfectionist (I'm definitely not trying to praise myself or something by saying that) and my problem is while I spare my time to study and can't get what I expect out of it, I can't start learning programming either.

What I do by day is restricted for now more than ever. I have my IA's to do and EE to revisit and TOK presentation and above all I have my TITC(history) exam coming up(it is the only exam we will take from May exams and others will be in November)(This much of busy schedule is not because I left it all to the end thought please don't act prejudice ). Therefore I always look at history for an hour a day by watching some youtube videos to not make the documentary stuff too academic and have fun while learning, plus I try to make summaries about the presentations of our teachers. Then I had given myself 30 minutes of math everyday to revise and an hour again for either Chem or Physics (as they are my HL and I have to give them the most attention). But I found this too exhausting and there were no gain and then ta daa, I came here for help. Now what I think is I might set days such as Monday and Thursday will be my Physics day, Tuesday is Math, Wednesday is for Chemistry and all I will do those days are to study those decided lessons for 45 minutes and do some tests (which I can't get to find because we do mocks every week for chem and physics so past papers are gone, and I don't know which sources would be nice to practice my IB courses), and after that study History until the exam; and Friday to relax with the weekends separated for homework and IA, EE. So you might see I don't know the most efficient working style for myself yet and I have problems with finding some revision questions.

And without forgetting, this actually is not just for me. I guess and am sure there are some fellow IB students who might be feeling like me. Therefore please lets help each other as we are a community here aiming towards it.

Thanks in advance

[kw0573]

Should I assume @batuhand and @penguins are the same person?
I too do not work very efficiently, but in my own experience I propose the following, with emphasis to combat 1) IA/EE/assignments 2) upcoming history exam

I recommends that you remain in regular contact with your supervisors on your IAs, ToK and EE. Once you made some progress, go check with them to see if it works. For example to maximize efficiency, you should be sure that you are on the right approach, without obstacles, before you spend too long on your own trying to problem solve. 

Similar to what you are saying, I recommend doing 2-3 subjects per day. To make class time most useful, consider spend 30 min a day looking over notes for all your classes. If you have something you don't quite understand, ask your teachers sometimes in the week. 

Considering the style of history exams, you should be writing essays to prepare, more so than watching videos. All necessary information should be in your notes and textbook, so watching documentaries may not be the most effective method. 

I am confused on why you can't use past papers. IB does sell them to student groups via follettibstore.com and if you don't have enough ib history questions, I recommend purchasing it with your class. 

[penguins]

hello again (and yes penguin and batuhan are same, I forgot my password and created one on my phone :/ )

The problem about past papers are not about I can't find them, it is about the fact that we do one or two every week in school for our teachers to see our progress. Therefore I need another textbook which I couldn't find any because they were not compatible with the IB program. 

As far as I understood you mean to revise what we had done that day and I do that but I simply can't find the most efficient way to revise the old topics, and day by day I feel depressed just because I think I will never be able to revise and do the best at them. For example at physics we had finished the SL part and now passed to HL but while we are studying new topics I sometimes have to recall the old ones and simply cannot. Then I say I have to study it but at the same time there is other lessons and assignments to do, so even if I find any time to revise I simply can't focus because of thinking other responsibilities. 

From all this some can get to a conclusion of 'you have got a terrible time management' and maybe it is true but I really try to manage it but I fail at it .

FYI: I don't know the world history lessons examination but in TITC we have two papers and paper 1 is more of knowledge and paper 2 is more of an essay type( and we get to chose some themes and answer that themes questions and guess what my IA was covering one theme and now I know it by heart  ). I'm not good at remembering the answers of paper 1 therefore I look at documentaries and my notes.

Thanks for your help

[penguins]

and can you please open up your advise for working daily (sorry for sending like this I forgot to asking it)

thanks again