onetoughcookie Posted July 23, 2009 Report Share Posted July 23, 2009 I'm wondering what to do during the last few weeks of summer for my first year of IB. We're a pioneer group at our school, so we are probably going to experience turmoil to fullest. I'm being a bibliophile and actually reading my required reading for English and Latin, unlike some people I know, who are pull out their hair stressing during the year. Do you think it is a little overboard to be studying the syllabi and reviewing the topics covered. Well, I just want to be successful so the program takes off at my school. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
sweetnsimple786 Posted July 23, 2009 Report Share Posted July 23, 2009 (edited) Haha. Whatever rocks your socks! Reading assigned material is definitely a must! But reading books that aren't assigned can be very bad. For example, if you read a book now that your teacher will assign in 2 months, when he/she gives pop quizzes on reading, you won't do so hot, I think. Plus you could burn out early. So just stick to the assignments for now. I'd say for IB1, less important is prepping and more important is being diligent throughout the year. Do every single piece of homework assigned. Don't procrastinate toooo much on your science lab reports. Also, try to learn the material when it's taught. Don't just cram for tests and then forget it later. That'll catch up with you and bite you. If your teachers aren't experienced, then you'll want to look at the syllabi more carefully and all that, but do NOT make your teachers feel like idiots. They will resent you, and you won't get nice letters of recommendation I'll edit this post with better advice tomorrow =)If you have specific questions, feel free to ask me [or anyone on here of course haha]Edit: Enjoy your time! Be lazy or be active. Just don't get bogged down with school material. The worst thing to do is become fanatical at the beginning of the year and then a zombie by the end of the second term. yikes! All work and no play makes for a dull boy [i think that's the right expression... either way it's true but stupid. No wonder no one ever completes it... but I digress.] I love my As as much as the next person, but so help me, if I don't get to spend my time doing what I want, I get surly haha. Don't know how I'll deal with that in the future. Good luckk Edited August 1, 2009 by sweetnsimple786 Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sandwich Posted July 23, 2009 Report Share Posted July 23, 2009 Well if your school has already issued you with required reading and allowed you to familiarise yourself with the syllabus etc., I wouldn't worry too much about their credentials as they're being really very proactive and organised!Aside from the required reading, though, I'm not sure there's too much you can do. As I recall, I was one of just three people in my year who didn't switch subjects within the six months after starting the IB! It's not really something you can prepare for in advance like that. Reading the novels in advance is perhaps the only thing, although obviously you'll have to be prepared to read them a second time - I found that kinda helpful, actually, as I inadvertantly read one of our books a year before we started as a book I would've read anyway, and when it turned out we were doing it, it all came flooding back and was a lot easier to write, especially for the World Lit Essays you'll end up doing, on account of the fact you have to write comparisons and if you knew what the book was about you could start thinking up stuff to compare right away If you're doing Latin it might be an idea to recover all the main grammatical points and make sure you've got a nice solid base for that (or any other language you might be doing, for that matter). That's one of the things I found, that my language skills totally collapsed between the year before the IB and IB1. Magically leeched out over the summer Other than that, you might want to consider arranging something to do for CAS I remember I signed up to work in the charity shop in the village near me and it took them 6 months to actually complete the paperwork and add me onto the roster! Also, you should be able to 'count back' CAS activities into the previous summer. We did that, anyway. So anything CAS-ish you've done over this summer can potentially solve all your CAS dilemmas in the future.As I said, there's not a great deal of stuff you can do. People tend to be quite choppy-changey at the start of IB anyway, and your teachers will lead you in gradually. Just remember the key IB things: don't let your teachers teach you from the wrong syllabus (including old ones) and don't let them -all- leave all your internal assessments until the last minute. Especially with the sciences, ask to do some IAs in IB1 if it looks like your teachers are leaving them all, because IAs end up being a very large percentage of your mark!Ironically, the first year of IB is often the best one to be in because the teachers are all clued in, eager and trying out something different Enthusiasm! Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Taigan Posted August 23, 2009 Report Share Posted August 23, 2009 Nothing.... should I be doing something? Well, my school gave us some reading material but I only just started...Anyways, I don't want to get my knickers in a twist just yet... Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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