ok guys. these past two years were HELL so here are some NO BULLSHIT TIPS that i wish i could tell my 16 year old self when i first started IB
ENGLISH AND BIO ARE NOT ‘EASY' HLS. Biology HL has an extensive syllabus and the marking criteria for English HL are very high! Properly look into your universities’ requirements - make sure to contact them and ask if they will accept the subjects you’re planning to take for the course you are applying for. (For example, some medicine courses in some universities don’t even require biology but they expect you to take chemistry, physics and maths HL). No HL is an ‘easy HL’ so make sure you choose something that you need or are interested. Note: to prospective/new students, IB requires a minimum of a total of 12 marks from your 3 HLs in order to pass the diploma program.
FINISH CAS ASAP Those CAS projects may look good on your uni applications and CVs but writing reflections and uploading evidence is a pain in the ass. I made the mistake of uploading everything at the last moment and in consequence, I had lost some of the pictures that I had collected as evidence and didn’t have time to request for certificates for some of my activities. Upload everything as soon as you get done with a particular activity - if you’re volunteering, training, coaching, competing, interning: don’t forget to collect certifications / evidence from the coordinators/coaches/parents that you have finished the said number of hours. Get CAS out of sight out of mind as soon as possible (collecting as much CAS as possible during your first year of IB is also beneficial for students who plan to apply to universities that have applications due early).
TOK IS A WASTE OF TIME I know this, you know this, even your TOK teachers know it. But it has to be done - so make things easier on yourself.
TOK PRESENTATION: First, choose a topic that you genuinely enjoy and know a lot about - a topic that you can talk about from the top of your head. This will help you while doing the actual presentation so that you feel more comfortable relaying your ideas and so it does’t end up becoming 10 minutes of you just saying words that you memorised. Your teacher and people online might say that having a partner will make the presentation easier, but in reality this depends on your subject. If your subject is vast, take a partner so the information can be shared amongst the 20 minutes that you have. If your topic is not as vast or does not have a lot of information, don’t take a partner. It may be a little scary to do it on your own but at the end of the day, 10 minutes of quality TOK material is better than 20 minutes of added information and irrelevant points just so you can reach the time limit.
TOK ESSAY: Essay titles are released in the early months of your second year - your TOK teachers will most likely discuss each and every title in class so that you have a better understanding of what they’re talking about. Here’s the secret to the TOK Essay: PICK THE EASIEST ONE. No examiner is going to give you extra marks because you picked a harder title over an easier title - its about the way you present the answer. Choose the title that you understand the most because if you understand it, the way you’ll write your essay will be clear and chances are, the examiner will understand it too. Choosing a title that you’re not familiar with, just because it looks impressive, will send you down a spiralling staircase of pretentious word vomit. In class, when we were looking through sample high scoring TOK essays, most of them were simple and easy to understand. Most of these high scoring essays depended on examples and real-life situations to explain their claims and counterclaims. Your TOK essay does not need to be a philosophical monologue!!
EXTENDED ESSAY: The daunting 4000 words that has every new IB student quaking in their pants. The biggest tip I can give you is this: DON’T TRY TO CHALLENGE YOURSELF BY PICKING A DIFFICULT SUBJECT. IF YOU DO NOT PASS YOUR EXTENDED ESSAY, YOU DO NOT GET YOUR DIPLOMA. YOUR UNIVERSITY DOES NOT CARE ABOUT NOR DO THEY CHECK THE SUBJECT YOU DO YOUR EE ON. There are obviously easier EE subjects that you will be able to score high marks in like: LanguageB, Business Management, etc. Now, you might say that any subject is easy if you enjoy it - sure, that may be true but that doesn’t change the fact that some subjects have higher standards and harder criteria: Physics, Chemistry, Maths HL. New students, don’t freak out about writing 4000 words - in reality, once you start writing your EE, you’ll find that you’ve exceeded your limit and you’ll be stuck trying to figure out how to cut it so it doesn’t affect the quality of your work.
DON’T BE EMBARRASSED ABOUT TAKING ESS OR MATH STUDIES. Anyone who makes fun of ESS and Math Studies students, stop it, its gross. If your university does not need Maths Standard/Higher level, don’t feel like you need to take them. If you find SL difficult and you feel you could score higher in Math Studies, take it. At the end of the day 7 in MS is better than a 4 in SL. Commerce students, if your school requires you to take one science, take ESS. Its practical, less time consuming, and genuinely very interesting. The internal assessment difficulty ranges depending on your topic: some need more experiment time than others but overall its significantly less than any other science like Biology or Chemistry or Physics. Its easy scoring, in case your university is looking at your overall score out of 45 rather than your subjects separately. Taking IB is a feat in itself, so making things a little easier for yourself is nothing to be ashamed about. (plus It’ll be you who’ll be laughing once exams arrive and your pg is a 7).
IOC TIPS: annoy the hell out of your teacher - steal them away for practice IOCs whenever you can. the more practice sessions you have, the better you’ll understand what you’re doing right/wrong, the time you reach, and the questions that you might get at the end of your commentary. if your teachers don’t give you the time of day, practice with the help of a friend or even to your own reflection in the mirror - sometimes your points might make sense on paper but not out loud and you’ll never find out which points those are until you’re talking about them. if its possible to opt, try to avoid poets BECAUSE you don’t know which poem you’ll draw on the final IOC recording day and each poem have their own story, writing style, and concepts. extracts from novels and short story collections on the other hand, have the same context, characters, writing style no matter which extract you draw. During your recording, you can connect your extract to other chapters/stories that you have learnt about if it supports the concept you’re talking about - unlike poems that talk about different topics so you cannot.
BM - CUEGIS CONCEPTS & CASE STUDY (P1):
Despite these being two very big parts of the final exams, there are only a few tips I can share.
For CUEGIS, choose an MNC because it’ll be easier for you to find information. Don’t mug up, choose a company you have an interest in. If you did your IA or Extended Essay on an MNC, you probably have some extent of knowledge about the company so use it for your CUEGIS essay. In preparation, just divide what you know and learn about the company into each concept and learn how they affect each other. Write practice essays by picking two random concepts with a random business topic.Â
For Paper 1, your teacher should discuss the given case study with you and helped your class analyse it. But, you should always go back and read/analyse the case by yourself, with friends, with other business students from other schools to make sure nothing is left untouched. You cannot use past papers because, obviously, their cases were different. So, if your teachers does not make sample exam questions / mock papers, make them for yourself. From simple things like definitions to evaluating decisions using business tools.Â
last but not least, don’t be afraid to drop ib if you really cannot take it anymore. There will always be universities or colleges that accept your high school diploma. At the end of the day, your mental health is more important that any 45. good luck! - my ask box is always open for anyone who needs tips, guides, resources, notes, or just want to rant with me about IB in general :)
