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Should I prepare for IB over the summer?


mazzie04

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Hello!

I'm starting IB in August this year and was wondering whether it is useful to start preparing for some courses over the summer. I've heard very diverse opinions about this topic, so I'd really love to hear what this community has to say :) As for the courses, I'm going to take:

HL: Biology, Chemistry and Psychology

SL: Eng LangLit, Math AA and Polish

I also started browsing through IB resources (YouTube channels, textbooks, websites etc.) in preparation for next year, so if you have any suggestions please share!

I'd very much appreciate your experiences/stories/advice.

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On 7/2/2020 at 9:36 AM, mazzie04 said:

Hello!

I'm starting IB in August this year and was wondering whether it is useful to start preparing for some courses over the summer. I've heard very diverse opinions about this topic, so I'd really love to hear what this community has to say :) As for the courses, I'm going to take:

HL: Biology, Chemistry and Psychology

SL: Eng LangLit, Math AA and Polish

I also started browsing through IB resources (YouTube channels, textbooks, websites etc.) in preparation for next year, so if you have any suggestions please share!

I'd very much appreciate your experiences/stories/advice.

Honestly, try to enjoy your summer before IB because there will be many things to do for the summers afterwards. I would say the biggest thing that I didn't know when I was going into IB was the coursework and the marking. I didn't know that the IA (internal assessment) is 20% and the exams are 80%. I also didn't know that there were EAs and EEs and TOK. One thing for sure is you should try to fix your sleep schedule asap, sleep as much as you can over the summer and try not to procrastinate when you work. Good luck!!!!

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I would just relax and enjoy the last bit of free time you have. You will be missing that.

I although I didn't try to prepare in the summer, I did try to prepare for my IAs and EE at the very beginning of IB1, thinking it will help me get ahead. Reality is, most topics you can think of this early likely won't work, as you do need somewhat of a good grasp on the subject to choose topics, and unless you're into the idea of reading the entire book (NOT recommended), you likely won't know what direction to even go.

And keep in mind that excitement fatigue and burnout can be very real, I worked of ass off semester 1 of IB1 and tired myself out early, which lead to me slacking off when IAs came and it really counts. If given the chance to re do my first year, I would rather take early IB (pre IA) much easier and leave the "let's ace this IB thing" energy until IAs. And I would say this applies to summer as well.

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