Spares

[Feist]

When I chose my courses for the upcoming year, my course counselor told all of the Full IB students that there would pretty much be no chance of survival without having at least one spare.

So my question to you is, how did you spend your spare(s)? How would you suggest spending spares with Full IB? Working, sleeping, slacking?

[biochem]

Definitions of spare on the Web:

not taken up by scheduled activities; "a free hour between classes"; "spare time on my hands"

Had to look that up

I say for your spare, if you are a junior going to senior, you should cover the past material and all future material for your hardest classes like G4 sciences and if you have HL Math, work on that also.

During all summers, If I were you, I would choose to enter those internships for independent research where you get everything paid for to go study somewhere. Its looks so good on your resume.

I can tell you no one sleeps as time goes on. Everyone in my school is messed up with sleep. Peak facebook hours: 1-3 AM.

[Sandwich]

Spares as in free lessons? We had 6 free 40-minute long lessons, plus 2 free halves of lunch (as in one half of lunch is for eating, the other usually for working if you're IB) every week. I ended up totally wasting mine, going into town, sitting having tea parties, going out for picnics etc.! So slacking. It was definitely relaxing and a good way to slot in the social life whilst at school

"Spares" were inevitable for us, though. They were timetabled in so we had roughly 3 hours of SL tuition and 4 hours of HL every week, per subject, and it had to conform to the normal timetable (for A Level students) so we slotted in around that. I think it's definitely a good thing to have some free time to opt into other things. I ended up using most of mine for EE meetings, or extra Maths help, CAS stuff etc.

Being honest, you should spend your free lessons by the day. If you have lots of work, or a test, work, if you don't, slack. If you're feeling kinda shot, sleep, or if you're feeling like shopping, wander out of school for a bit to chill out and get some stuff I found mine extremely flexible. I did whatever seemed right. Including not bothering to come into school until late if I had one in the morning. Those were excellent days

[Dark Matter]

The first year of IB classes I had one spare right after chemistry, so I used this spare as a time to just relax and goof off. Mainly I played cards. I mastered Slap However when April approached and I only had my chem IB exam to do that year I used my spare to go over my notes and organize eveything. Then after my spare was lunch so I used that time to actually study. So my spare was like a very relaxed study time. Then after my chem exam was over we still had until June for classes so the spare turned into a time to prepare for that.

Sadly for my final year in IB I only had a spare the first semester every second day last slot. I used that to go home early and sleep. Then the didn't have any spares left for the rest of teh year. Boo.

So basically like Sandwich said above, use your spares the way you need to depending on the day. If you don't have much work to do that day (Or maybe it's a Friday and you want to just relax ) you can just hang out with friends during your spare. Then on days when you have lots to do you can just work through your whole spare.

[__inthemaking]

I had a spare in the second semester of grade 12.

Since IB exams were coming up that May, we spent spares either taking an extended lunch hour, going home early, or doing mock papers in the library/balcony of our school.

[sweetnsimple786]

I'm interpreting your spares to mean down time or extracurricular activities.

I suggest some sort of exercise. Jogging. Throwing around a ball with friends. Swimming. Whatever.

Also talking to people. That's what keeps me sane Just ragging on IB. Complaining. Talking about an upcoming event.

Also, if you need CAS, try to incorporate that into your life =)

If this isn't what you're talking about, then well I hope you got a good kick out of this bahaha

[KLSmash]

I had my spare when everyone else had their first class in the morning so I just slept in.

[moneyfaery]

Lunch/socializing/work. You can nap too, but it's kind of hard to sleep when there's a constant steam of people coming over to talk to you, haha.

Do you have a designated lunch too? If that's the case, try to work hard during your spare, but if it ends up being hardly working, well, no one can blame you. We're all like that (almost).

[biochem]

ohhhhh I see now!

We call that JA now. or study hall.

However this year it has been changed to research.

We have strict guidelines for it, no IPODS or anything, you are suppose to have a silent time to study. However some teachers dont follow this and let the kids run wild, and they are the classes the seniors switch out usually.

I used it really to study and get a head start on Bio IA for lab, and do my EE for biology. I was next to the lab, so I did experiments for independent research.

[meh]

For the upcoming year I will only have a spare if I decide to drop IB physics. It's at the end of the day, so I would just leave school earlier and either sleep or get started on homework at home. If I had it in the middle of the day, I can't see myself being able to fully dedicate that period to schoolwork everyday no matter how big my workload....unless none of my other friends had a spare with me. Breaks help me de-stress =]

Edited August 11, 2009 by meh

[faith]

We are technically supposed to spend our spares studying or doing homework, but I usually use mine to either chat with friends or catch up with friends, unless a test is coming up. =) Like many other people have said already, I think you should spend them according to what you need to on the day.

[greaterthaninfinity]

I basically had 3 spares towards the end of this year for a month (because I had just finished two of my anticipated exams this year as well as ToK class). To be honest with you, I spent the majority of these spares sleeping in or chatting with friends. Other than that, I studied for a few math tests during these spares. I basically gave up on all my subjects with the exception of math at the end of this year; so yeah - that's why. Haha.

[Tilia]

Last year, I had a lot of gap hours in between classes, which could be pretty annoying, but also rather good when it came to school work. I tended to study during them, which gave me more spare time at home, and it was also good for my shoulders and back, since if I studied maths in school, I didn't have to bring the huge, heavy book home.

But it's also good to relax and be social in order to rinse your brain between the classes. But actually sleepings are good to study at, in my opinion. I think it's easier to study in the morning and it's usually quite calm in school at that time.

[Peachez]

Oh my gosh, you guys are so lucky to have spares! I do not have any whatsoever!

[Shorty]

I got through IB just fine without spares =)

[Sandwich]

In some senses I think it'd be better without free lessons. You must get in loads more hours of lesson time. Valuable hours!

[biochem]

In some senses I think it'd be better without free lessons. You must get in loads more hours of lesson time. Valuable hours!

a lot of times spares dont take up lesson time. Like they are a period that you must attend school, but the IB curriculum is done, and so you might get placed into an elective. Sometimes electives are not possible for students, if they especially try to go for a traditional program elective, where IB is a program instead of a full school.

spares in my school are super valuable time for IA prep, especially those regarding lab hours. Plus a small amount of us do independent research, and so I just go into the laboratory to do research.

[Peachez]

We definately do not have extra time in IB because I am taking so called electives + I have an independent class that I do without supervision because it does not fit my schedule. So basically, other than IB I have other work to complete. Although, I find it great to have spares because then you have the time to work aheaqd, start doing homework for a class, work on essays, projects etc.

[Tilia]

Oh my gosh, you guys are so lucky to have spares! I do not have any whatsoever!

Well, I'd rather not have any and have a reasonable short schoolday than ending 17.40 as I did one day last year.

[Peachez]

Oh my gosh, you guys are so lucky to have spares! I do not have any whatsoever!

Well, I'd rather not have any and have a reasonable short schoolday than ending 17.40 as I did one day last year.

Trust me, you do not want to have the schedule like I do. You know why? Because every day we have the same classes in the same order (8 of them) and we end school at 3:30 p.m. This is horrible because each teacher thinks that their class is the most important and expects everyone to have homework done. Its terrible!!