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Chemistry Revision


beaksturr

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  • 4 weeks later...

I suggest a combination of the IBID Chemistry Book, the Oxford Study Guide and lots of past papers. These were the only things I used to self-study Chemistry and judging by my grade, I was successful :P

Yes, past papers are really important, as you sometimes have to answer in a special way/very exactly.

Max: I really envy your grades. How did you do in order to score so well?

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The best way to study for chemistry is to use textbooks. The oxford study guide is excellent as it covers all of the topics and also has some sample questions. OSC guide is also pretty decent. Additionally, doing past papers will give u a sense of what kind of questions to expect on future exams. And also do practice worksheets your teacher might provide to you and personally, I do not prefer sites for chem.

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Max: I really envy your grades. How did you do in order to score so well?

I think it was a mixture of effort and luck.

I put lots of effort into the sciences. I basically self-studied most of the syllabi. In class I would get a basic idea and before tests and mocks I would just go through every syllabus point and teach myself topics I was unfamiliar with or didn't understand in class using the IBID ebooks and the Oxford Study Guides. I also decided to self-study the options I was interested in most. Further organic chemistry was just confusing, so I taught myself medicine and drugs. Same thing in Biology: I really disliked Ecology and Conversation, so I went for Neurobiology. Paper 3 was ridiculously easy though, I was surprised they used a question from the specimen on there.

I didn't put that much effort into Economics throughout IB1 and IB2; I sort of paid attention in class and got a basic idea, but I really started 'learning' everything thoroughly a few weeks before the exams by going through the syllabus and making my own notes. I also bought the new Oxford Study Guide and I can only recommend it; it helped a lot!

I put the least effort into maths. I just find it easy to grasp concepts and apply them to new situations.

My English teacher expected me to get a 7, but my orals weren't that great (I went clubbing the night before) and I messed up paper 1. This is where luck came in: Paper 2 had a question that perfectly pertained to two of the three novels I read about on SparkNotes the night before. I don't have my component grades yet, but I think this is what saved my grade.

As for German, I have absolutely no idea how I got that 7 because I really expected a 5-6. My orals were quite good, my world lit was average and my papers weren't the best. I put effort into paper two though because I knew I had to get a good mark to maintain a satisfactory grade, so what I did was read up everything on the internet I could find about our works. Unfortunately the questions were bad, but I guess the grade boundaries went down tremendously.

I would not recommend the self-studying bit to anyone who finds it extremely hard to remain disciplined. In retrospect, the way I studied for my science paper 3s was pretty stupid and I would not recommend it to anyone. I had never properly learned my Chemistry options and I started the night before the exam using 'my' method. Similar with bio - I had never done Neurobiology before. I started the night before at 9pm, finished one option at 3am and woke up at 7am to finish the other option. Needless to say, I aced both paper 3s :P

Oh, and I did loads of past papers. At least twice!

Edited by Max
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I put lots of effort into the sciences. I basically self-studied most of the syllabi. In class I would get a basic idea and before tests and mocks I would just go through every syllabus point and teach myself topics I was unfamiliar with or didn't understand in class using the IBID ebooks and the Oxford Study Guides. I also decided to self-study the options I was interested in most. Further organic chemistry was just confusing, so I taught myself medicine and drugs. Same thing in Biology: I really disliked Ecology and Conversation, so I went for Neurobiology. Paper 3 was ridiculously easy though, I was surprised they used a question from the specimen on there.

So you did different options from the rest of your class?

Could someone tell me a bit about the IBID books? I hear them mentioned a lot. Are they like the study guides?

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So you did different options from the rest of your class?

Could someone tell me a bit about the IBID books? I hear them mentioned a lot. Are they like the study guides?

Yup, I studied one out of two options offered in both classes and then I taught myself another option for each science.

IBID books are more like textbooks in that they have more information than a study guide. What I like about them is that the information is sorted by syllabus outcome, which makes it easier to see what you have to know exactly. Unfortunately they contain a few mistakes here and there, which is why I complemented them with the Oxford Study Guides and Click4Biology notes.

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Yup, I studied one out of two options offered in both classes and then I taught myself another option for each science.

Wow, how ambitious aren't you?

Did you decide to do that because the options your teachers taught were too boring or too hard?

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Wow, how ambitious aren't you?

Did you decide to do that because the options your teachers taught were too boring or too hard?

The Ecology option in Biology was too boring and the Further Organic Chem option in Chemistry was too confusing and involved HL stuff, even though it's a SL option. Neurobiology and Medicine & Drugs were much more interesting :blink:

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The Ecology option in Biology was too boring and the Further Organic Chem option in Chemistry was too confusing and involved HL stuff, even though it's a SL option. Neurobiology and Medicine & Drugs were much more interesting :P

Further Organic Chemistry seems to be the nightmare of all chemistry students in here. I'm getting scared about the ordinary organic chemistry... :P

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Further Organic Chemistry seems to be the nightmare of all chemistry students in here. I'm getting scared about the ordinary organic chemistry... :P

The SL bit of the core organic Chemistry is a joke, honestly. Don't know about the HL bit though :P

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Further Organic was a really hard option, although I also found it actually really interesting (well okay, mostly only the additional bits on acids and bases and why they're strong and weak!). Lots of mechanism memorising and it seemed a considerably longer topic than all the others! I also did Drugs & Medicines and it took me easily 5 or 6 times less time to do. D&M was memorising a couple of facts about drugs, whereas Further Organic was... something else!!

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Further Organic was a really hard option, although I also found it actually really interesting (well okay, mostly only the additional bits on acids and bases and why they're strong and weak!). Lots of mechanism memorising and it seemed a considerably longer topic than all the others! I also did Drugs & Medicines and it took me easily 5 or 6 times less time to do. D&M was memorising a couple of facts about drugs, whereas Further Organic was... something else!!

Yeah, I'd like to do Drugs and Medicines, and I think we will, considering how many people in my group who're into medicine.

But acids and bases are fun (even though it's the hardest topic so far), but how did they come into the organic option?

Edited by Tilia
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I guess it's because it's all to do with ion size and charge density and that sort of thing, and so once you know the principles it allows you to explain the relative strengths of the organic acids and bases, something you can't do otherwise. The main option only really tells you that organic a&bs tend to be weak, but there's little to no explanation as to why, or as to their relative strengths between each other, as they don't really cover the organic acids and bases much. So it does sort-of make sense to stick all that explanation in the further organic section as it applies mostly if not solely to the organic a&bs.

Edited by Sandwich
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Yup, I studied one out of two options offered in both classes and then I taught myself another option for each science.

IBID books are more like textbooks in that they have more information than a study guide. What I like about them is that the information is sorted by syllabus outcome, which makes it easier to see what you have to know exactly. Unfortunately they contain a few mistakes here and there, which is why I complemented them with the Oxford Study Guides and Click4Biology notes.

where do you get those books to study from?

and wow, how did you manage to get such high grades? thats awesome!!

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where do you get those books to study from?

and wow, how did you manage to get such high grades? thats awesome!!

I got the books from my school. They come with a CD so you can view the textbook on your computer :P

And thanks, it was a combination of effort and luck, but read my long post somewhere in this thread to see what I did exactly :P

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