yara560 Posted April 19, 2018 Report Share Posted April 19, 2018 Hey there, With less than 2 weeks to the math exam, do you guys have any suggestions for math prep? I need to get a 6 in math, and I have the most trouble with paper 2, and some calculus, and I've been doing past papers but I get a bit tripped up with the questions. I feel that just doing past papers is a bit inefficient, do you guys have any suggestions? Thanks! Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
kw0573 Posted April 19, 2018 Report Share Posted April 19, 2018 There is no better way than doing past papers. It's good that you know which area to work on so just do questions related to your weak spots. Start with section A then move on to section B. If you have any questions you can ask them in the forum. Best luck! 1 Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lixter Posted April 19, 2018 Report Share Posted April 19, 2018 I would have to disagree with kw0573. Even though practice is important, it is essentially useless if you don't know what you are doing. So, my advice would be to go through your fundamentals thoroughly and make sure that you know the concepts inside-out. I rarely do past year papers yet still am able to score 6s and occasional 7s in HL Math because the key in math is understanding. There will always be another question that you may have never seen before, hence you need to understand your concepts such that you can solve any question despite having not seen it before. (But you also need some practice still because it exposes you to new, unfamiliar questions) Hope this helps! 1 Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
kw0573 Posted April 19, 2018 Report Share Posted April 19, 2018 7 hours ago, Lixter said: I would have to disagree with kw0573. Even though practice is important, it is essentially useless if you don't know what you are doing. So, my advice would be to go through your fundamentals thoroughly and make sure that you know the concepts inside-out. I rarely do past year papers yet still am able to score 6s and occasional 7s in HL Math because the key in math is understanding. There will always be another question that you may have never seen before, hence you need to understand your concepts such that you can solve any question despite having not seen it before. (But you also need some practice still because it exposes you to new, unfamiliar questions) Hope this helps! The main question is whether OP understand topics but struggles with some IB questions or is just confused about the topics. In the former case, it would be good to practice IB problems. If the second case, it's better to review notes and work on simpler problems. I concede that the approach to just do as many IB problems as one could is not a short term solution. Then on the other hand you will not be prepared for the exam if you are unfamiliar with marks allocation or even question styles. There is very little time in the exam to sit and ponder on a question. 2 Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
inriya Posted April 20, 2018 Report Share Posted April 20, 2018 On 4/19/2018 at 9:38 AM, yara560 said: Hey there, With less than 2 weeks to the math exam, do you guys have any suggestions for math prep? I need to get a 6 in math, and I have the most trouble with paper 2, and some calculus, and I've been doing past papers but I get a bit tripped up with the questions. I feel that just doing past papers is a bit inefficient, do you guys have any suggestions? Thanks! Practising past paper is always the key to getting a 7, Math SL is basically the same format over and over again every year compared to other subjects. You will have an opportunity to explore what you are weak at, then drill more on it. If you know you are weak at Calculus, why not reread it again, do some more exercise before going for exam 2 weeks later. 21 hours ago, Lixter said: I would have to disagree with kw0573. Even though practice is important, it is essentially useless if you don't know what you are doing. So, my advice would be to go through your fundamentals thoroughly and make sure that you know the concepts inside-out. I rarely do past year papers yet still am able to score 6s and occasional 7s in HL Math because the key in math is understanding. There will always be another question that you may have never seen before, hence you need to understand your concepts such that you can solve any question despite having not seen it before. (But you also need some practice still because it exposes you to new, unfamiliar questions) Hope this helps! Yeah, I agree with what @Lixter has said here. However, I must emphasize that reading is NOT sufficient in scoring you a high score if you do not practice it. Thanks to past papers, 2 years ago I was able to score a high 7 in both my mocks and my finals. Good luck with your Finals! 2 Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
yara560 Posted April 21, 2018 Author Report Share Posted April 21, 2018 Thank you everyone for your suggestions! I guess my situation is a little weird because in some cases I understand the topics but not the IB style questions, which would be the case for paper 2, but some topics I'm a little shaky with in terms of my foundation, which would be calculus and a bit of statistics and probability. I guess I'll do a bit of both, practice a bunch of paper 2 questions and go over topic 5 and 6 again with simple problems and then attempt the IB style questions. Thanks a lot! Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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