It’s about less than 6 months left before the November IB examinations! Look around you and you would have noticed that some of your friends have already started preparing for it. 

How about you? Are you still mindlessly scrolling through Instagram everyday? Are you perhaps playing Animal Crossing on your Nintendo Switch? 

If you haven’t started or don’t know how to start, this guide will be perfect for you! It will explain what I did when I began my revision, exactly 4 years ago. 

But first of all, you might be asking: “Isn’t it too early to start?”

It does seem like a long time, doesn’t it? 5 months is about 150 days give or take. 

But I urge you to think otherwise. Let’s look at it in terms of weeks:

Approximately 20 weeks? 

20 weeks for 6 subjects, meaning about 3.33 weeks per subject. 

The HL Economics textbook is about 500 pages (of which maybe 400 pages have actual content). That means if you were to revise by reading the textbook, you would have to read 21 pages per day. 

But that’s just being optimistic! You will still need to clarify some of the doubts that you have (maybe because you fell asleep while your teacher was going through PED) and you will also need to try out some practices! 

So, that’s 21 pages worth of content + time taken to clarify doubts + do some practices. 

ALL IN ONE DAY. 

Do you see my point now? You don’t actually have that much time if you just started studying now. 

But is it too late? 

Trust me when I say its not too late. How do I know? Because I started studying around this period as well. 

And I had friends who started studying 2 months before the examination. Though, they didn’t do too well and they were panicking throughout. (So, not advisable at all). 

So, let’s get in to what I suggest you do. 

1. Create a Plan

Wait, this guy literally just told me that there’s no time. Yet, he wants me to spend time creating a plan???

Yes, because in the “long run” (5 months), it will help you save time. 

How? By ensuring that you know what you need to cover each week such that you are able to finish revision on time. 

Without a plan, you won’t know whether you are revising at the right pace. 

So how should your plan look like? 

My suggestion is to create a plan each week. Personally, what I did was to study one subject a day. This helped me to ensure that I won’t feel bored of continuously studying the same subject. 

So, my weekly schedule might look like this: 

Monday: Economics- Demand and Supply + 1 set of essay questions

Tuesday: Chemistry- Mole concept + 1 MCQ set

Wednesday: Geography- Hazards and Disasters + 1 essay practice

and so on…

If you do 1 topic revision per day, you should be able to still be able to pace yourself. Of course, adjust this according to the topics as certain topics may require more time. 

Of course, keep in mind that nearer the examination, you may want to revisit certain topics! 

It is also important to try to stick to the plan as much as possible but should you need to adjust, do what feels comfortable yet practical! 

2. Practise Past Year Papers

Note that I had incorporated practices in to my revision. My suggestion is to try out whole past-year papers. Although you may not have reached those topics in your revision, you should still attempt them! 

How this will help you is that it will identify questions and concepts that you do not understand (but may not have been aware of). Then, when you revise those topics, you will be able to focus precisely on those gaps. 

There are loads of benefits from attempting such papers such as: 

• Reinforcing what you had revised 

• Applying what you had revised in to examinable questions

• Becoming familiar with the types of questions — when you see them in your exam, you will be able to answer fluidly

• Sometimes, the IB recycles questions. So, one way you can see it is that you had a chance to look at the “answer sheet.”

Hopefully, your school should have given you these papers for you to practice so don’t waste this good opportunity! 

3. Seek Help If You Need!

Tuition is a good way for you to prepare for your November papers. 

Here are some of the benefits that finding a tuition service might provide: 

1. Disciplined revision sessions: If you know that you can’t keep to a schedule or that you are generally not someone who is disciplined, having 1.5hrs a week of tuition for a subject is a good solution. This not only ensures that you will allocate some time to the subject but most tuition services also provide questions and practices that will help in your preparation. 

2. Personalized revision: One thing that tuition services can offer that school’s may not be able to is personalised revision. Tuition services such as ours (iblounge.org) provides individual or small group (4 students per session) sessions. These sessions allow students to clarify any doubts they have which will clarified by our patient tutors!

3. Study tips and resources: Some students may try to study using rather “ineffective” methods such as memorizing the whole textbook. Tuition services commonly help students to prepare for examinations in more efficient ways. These may come in the form of mindmaps, cheatsheets or even more practice! At IB Lounge, we prepare a range of resources for our students to aid them in their learning. 

4. Take a Break Once In Awhile

In this competitive landscape where everyone aims to get a 45, we sometimes forget that students are humans as well. 

And humans, need breaks!

Unfortunately, in the rush and panic due to the preparation for IB, many students forget to take a break. 

While engaging in intensive studying is not necessarily a bad thing, studying for long periods of time without any breaks can be detrimental. For example, some students may actually feel burnt out. These students may then feel unmotivated nearer the examinations and end up doing badly. 

As students ourselves, we find that taking a break also allows for increased productivity after! So, while you may have “wasted” 30 minutes playing some games, the hours of productivity afterwards may be worth it. 

So when should you take a break? 

When you feel that you are unmotivated or productivity is decreasing, this may be a good indication that you deserve a break! 

Of course, nearer to the examinations, you may be taking fewer breaks (though you should still take them when you need to). 

Concluding Words

All in all, pacing yourself is the key to excelling in the IB examination! However, we would advise you to start as soon as possible to avoid any last-minute panicking. This is also so that you have ample time to clarify any doubts and seek help as well. 

We hope this article has helped you! Feel free to share it with your friends who are preparing as well if this might help. 

Do reach out to us if you need any help or even any advice with regards to preparation for the IB examination! We will be more than glad to help!