From a 30% in Math HL mocks to a 60% in IB Finals

[SMY]

Hello Everyone,

I am a graduate of the IB on MAY 2018, and I had always been a student who was pretty good at math. I did MYP, and slid through it with 7s all along in Math. I then was told by my teacher that Math HL would be suitable for me and that it would be a good challenge. At that time I thought, yeahh but I will just go in and prove that its easy. My first Sequence and series test, I got a 3, and was in terrible shock, I had never seen below a 7 in years in Math, and the MATH HL IB CLASS had a first test given to me that was a 3. I continued and it seemed like after I had a talk with the IB DP coordinator who feared that maybe HL Maths was the wrong choice for me, I was improving. The next tests I continued to improve and it looked like I could even get a 6 in my IB YEAR 1 school finals. I did the YEAR 1 finals and scored a low 4...something like 39% and I was really feeling bad for myself. I also had physics HL and Econ HL, and I wanted to move to Chem HL, which I later did. BUT MATH HL had turned me to a humble student and I knew I had to work so hard but I couldn't find enough time in a summer that I began applying to the US unis. My grade made me the worst in the class, and also the only student from MYP, so I wanted to blame the easy MYP system but that was not going to help me pass IB...and I knew that!

YEAR 2 started and HL MATHS got even more fast paced and harder, and I was literally scoring 2s on Integral Calculus papers, and this was tearing down my confidence. When YEAR 2 MOCKS came, I scored a 30% in P1 and a 38% in Paper 2....THAT WAS A 3 in January whilst my exams were on May. From then on, I got my final predicted grades and it was written on my report I will get a 3 in my finals, and if I work really hard, then a 4. I really wanted to prove that I could get a 6 in HL MATH. So, I began working and revising in February.  Going through the IB Study guide for HL maths, IB questionbanks, and an online website that helped with questions. I even got onto whatsapp math groups that I thought could help. When march came around I did a few past papers like worth maybe 2-3 years and sat the exam. I ended up with a 60% in the IB math HL Finals, which is a 5 (StatsOption). Even though I was aiming to show I can get a 6, I will be fine with the 5, because I know I put as much as I could in the time that I had to prepare. From failure, I managed to regain my self-confidence. It was quite a journey of challenges as my teacher who advised me to take the subject had once said.

[Arjo_ibbbbbb]

On 7/7/2018 at 3:09 PM, SMY said:

Hello Everyone,

I am a graduate of the IB on MAY 2018, and I had always been a student who was pretty good at math. I did MYP, and slid through it with 7s all along in Math. I then was told by my teacher that Math HL would be suitable for me and that it would be a good challenge. At that time I thought, yeahh but I will just go in and prove that its easy. My first Sequence and series test, I got a 3, and was in terrible shock, I had never seen below a 7 in years in Math, and the MATH HL IB CLASS had a first test given to me that was a 3. I continued and it seemed like after I had a talk with the IB DP coordinator who feared that maybe HL Maths was the wrong choice for me, I was improving. The next tests I continued to improve and it looked like I could even get a 6 in my IB YEAR 1 school finals. I did the YEAR 1 finals and scored a low 4...something like 39% and I was really feeling bad for myself. I also had physics HL and Econ HL, and I wanted to move to Chem HL, which I later did. BUT MATH HL had turned me to a humble student and I knew I had to work so hard but I couldn't find enough time in a summer that I began applying to the US unis. My grade made me the worst in the class, and also the only student from MYP, so I wanted to blame the easy MYP system but that was not going to help me pass IB...and I knew that!

YEAR 2 started and HL MATHS got even more fast paced and harder, and I was literally scoring 2s on Integral Calculus papers, and this was tearing down my confidence. When YEAR 2 MOCKS came, I scored a 30% in P1 and a 38% in Paper 2....THAT WAS A 3 in January whilst my exams were on May. From then on, I got my final predicted grades and it was written on my report I will get a 3 in my finals, and if I work really hard, then a 4. I really wanted to prove that I could get a 6 in HL MATH. So, I began working and revising in February.  Going through the IB Study guide for HL maths, IB questionbanks, and an online website that helped with questions. I even got onto whatsapp math groups that I thought could help. When march came around I did a few past papers like worth maybe 2-3 years and sat the exam. I ended up with a 60% in the IB math HL Finals, which is a 5 (StatsOption). Even though I was aiming to show I can get a 6, I will be fine with the 5, because I know I put as much as I could in the time that I had to prepare. From failure, I managed to regain my self-confidence. It was quite a journey of challenges as my teacher who advised me to take the subject had once said.

I have literally gone through the same journey as you. Having only gotten 7s in MYP the diploma math AA HL course has been very challenging. I got a 1 in Year 1 mocks and have been receiving grades around 4s through Year 2. The first math exam mocks tomorrow (28th Feb) and I am fairly certain I won't get a good grade. I was just hoping to hear someone suceed between the time for mocks and the finals. I have around 1 and a half months and I am just hoping I can pull it off. I will update this in a month.