Navigating the Challenges of IB Exams

Receiving 45 points in the IB would give you the most incredible sense of relief; this feeling would justify your immense effort over the two-year-long programme.

Apart from this satisfaction, it would also give you numerous other benefits, such as getting into a reputable university, receiving merit scholarships, and being able to tutor IB students.

In the long run, the IB helps students become more adaptable, culturally aware, think critically, and become more prepared for the real world. Success in most things comes down to two factors: hard work and consistency.

If you are looking to get a perfect score in the IB Diploma programme, follow the tips given below to study for the IB exams:

1. Don’t be let down by the negativity

IB beginner students often hear about the difficulty of the diploma programme and how the IB exams are hard from alumni, seniors, or the internet.

While it is recommended to communicate with them and receive helpful information that will ease your way into the programme, it is also vital to steer clear of negativity to enter IB with a positive and confident mindset. You must learn to have faith and believe in yourself so that you will be able to take action towards achieving your goal confidently.

2. Duration of the programme

As the IB is a two-year-long programme, you will likely forget the content you learned in year one. Therefore, it is crucial to be consistent with revision and constantly studying for the major IB exams.

Schools conduct midterm and semester examinations for the sole purpose of being able to retain and understand concepts thoroughly. Keeping in mind the coursework such as IA, EE, and TOK, it is essential to have time management skills Following a timeline will help in being organized, less scattered, and effectively managing your time.

3. Start early.

Students tend to procrastinate studying until their final IB examinations arrive. This can cause an immense amount of stress and panic, leading to poor performance in the final IB examinations.

Thus, it is required for students to start their revision months in advance of the final IB exams. This not only allows you to completely revise through every concept but also gives you time to practice numerous past papers to be fully equipped to take up the exams.

Practicing past papers is one of the most important ways to ace the final IB exams. It provides you with the structure and type of questions that appear in the exams, helping students be thoroughly prepared. It also helps students be more organized in terms of finding out which section takes up most of their time and thus, provides an ideal way of timing yourself and becoming self-aware of your strengths and weaknesses.

Therefore, familiarizing yourself with past papers as much as possible early on is essential when it comes to preparing for the final examinations.

4. Study Effectively

To study effectively for exams, you must list down all of the topics under each subject you struggle with the most and tackle them first. Reading through topics you are comfortable with is not of much use as you may not learn anything new. If anything, IB was designed for students to get out of their comfort zone and tackle more challenging obstacles.

Getting the difficult topics out of the way makes it much easier to revise right before the final IB Exams and you will become more confident with what you know and less stressed overall.

Also Read: 7 Tips for Getting an A* in A Levels

5. Create a schedule and plan breaks

Creating a schedule for what you need to study for each day and for how many hours will help make things more organized and determine the amount of time it will take to cover all topics for every subject before any exam final or a midterm.

This allows you to distinctly know how much progress you have made in that period of time. This can also help with determining whether your study methods are time-effective or not.

Additionally, planning breaks are just as important. The maximum amount of time a person can concentrate on a topic is 20 minutes. Accordingly, having short breaks every 20 minutes will help you stay focused and keep you engaged.

6. Avoid distractions while studying

It is essential to ensure that there are zero distractions when studying as it could deter your train of thought and interest towards that topic.

Make sure your phone, TV, and any sort of social network are turned off or away from you. You might think that responding to a message may be harmless and will only take a few seconds, but it could lead to hours wasted without you even noticing it or a loss of focus overall.

However, this does not necessarily mean that students must stay clear of all distractions permanently. Once you have finished studying according to what has been accomplished in your schedule in the allocated time, you can reward yourself with anything— be it watching a movie or texting your friends.

7. Enjoy the process and focus on learning

While your ultimate goal for studying may be to do well on the IB exams, it is important to be less goal-oriented and focus on the process simultaneously.

Students must look at studying as an opportunity to learn something new that they can apply in their own lives or carry forward.The goal of the IB programme itself is to equip students with skills that they can apply in real life and during university, not just for the external examinations.

Unlike most boards in India, students in the IB have the liberty to pick subjects from a wide variety offered by their school based on their interests. So use this to your advantage and choose the subjects you are most passionate about and willing to study. Studying for it may not seem as burdening and uninteresting; you will have the incentive and motivation to study subjects you enjoy learning about.

8. Following Healthy Lifestyle

Apart from studying for the examinations themselves, students need to ensure a healthy lifestyle to maintain physical and mental health. Undertaking a rigorous programme can be exhausting and tiresome. The program’s intensity can make it easy to forget that you require to be physically healthy and be in the right mindset to ace the IB Exams.

Hence getting an adequate amount of sleep (8 hours) and maintaining a balanced diet is crucial to maintaining energy and overall health. Getting physical activity in the form of a sport, exercise or meditation is also needed to remain healthy, improve strength and mental health.

Lastly, students must try to spend time with family and surround themselves with other people who challenge them and influence them positively. You require all kinds of moral and physical support at this point in time to feel confident and motivated to do well in this programme and your examinations.

9. The Final Examination

When the final IB examinations arrive, you must focus on one exam at a time. This may sound counter-productive, but unless you have a short gap between exams, you need to focus on one exam at a time.

Studying various subjects at once could make things complicated for you to process and remember concepts or equations. Therefore, it would be highly effective if you focus on one particular subject and tackle the exam before moving on to the next.

10. Don’t Neglect the IA

While the final examinations contribute to 80% of your grade, it is necessary to keep in mind that the remaining 20% comes from Internal Assessments. Usually, students must complete the first draft of their IAs for each subject by the end of year one. Therefore, it is important to focus on refining your IAs to their maximum to make the most of this 20%.

Furthermore, the Diploma Program’s core components that contribute to 3 points of the total IB score consist of the Extended Essay and Theory of Knowledge. Students often focus on the core components during their second year. Receiving grades A and B will be sufficient to secure 3 points out of 45.

11. Timely Revisions is the key to success

Lastly, it is vital to be as time-efficient as possible during revision. An overall reading for the sole purpose of revision is highly recommended; subject guides would be the most effective when doing so. I would suggest using the Oxford study guides as they act as distilled textbooks, explaining concepts in a compact and straightforward way to use for revision, which allows for more topics to be covered in short time spans.

All in all, to be successful in the IB, one must be thorough with the syllabus and its requirements, work consistently and be familiar with the format of coursework and exams. In addition, achieving balance and time management skills are essential when undertaking the IB programme as it has a wide range of requirements.

Ultimately, students must learn to be highly organized by following a proper and detailed schedule for the topics that need to be learned in a day, among other things, for the entire course of the programme.

Further Reading:

IB Blog