List of IB Textbooks: All Subjects!

[Guest syrianstar]

Hi everyone,

My school has just started the IB diploma this year so this a new experience for the full IB students and the teachers. Halfway through the year we found that most of our textbooks were pretty much useless (either too detailed or simply not complicated enough for IB ) so I hope to get some suggestions on any textbooks that people have found useful while studying for their IB Diploma.

I take English SL, Chemistry SL, Maths Sl, Biology HL, Economics HL and Arabic HL - though suggestions about textbooks on any subject would be helpful for those who take other options.

Thanks in advance!

[Ivan91]

for chemistry you could get the ibid book Chemistry for the Ib dipolma 3rd edition ,for maths sl get the SL math book from the same publisher.. i am not too sure about the others but for english you jus need novels which your school chooses

[CellarDoor]

For Chemistry I found out a course companion written by Geoffrey Neuss, who, according to my teacher, is the God of IB Chemistry. It has shown to be extremely complete and detailed, and includes the option topics. It does not, however, provide the background knowledge GCSE/O Level chemistry that is the stepping stone for the course.

I do not know of any textbooks for Languages, or at least for A1 (I do both A1). My teachers make photocopies of literature books all the time, but there is not one focused on the IB Diploma Programme.

Most people in my year group do Maths SL and use the IBID book. I do HL and found that the IBID book does not cover the options part of the course. I have no idea how complete the SL book is.

There is also not one book for history, but a lot of photocopies of chapters of books by this or that historian, of this event or so. This is because there is such a vast range of topics that IB History can cover that not one book could be complete.

[chang9121990]

For both Biology HL and AP Biology our school uses the Campbell Biology book.

It's quite a popular choice for advanced high school and introductory college biology AFAIK.

I don't take HL Bio, but I've found it quite helpful for AP Bio.

The pictures are very nice and the captions are pretty clear.

The explanationsin the book are also generally thorough and clear.

And for both HL & SL English we don't have required textboks...

however my teacher makes copies off the IB Study Guide for Language A1 to supply us with extra info on things like WL and IOP

We use many textbooks for SL History,

main ones are The European Didtatorships 1918-1845 by Stephen J. Lee and Europe 1870-1991 by Terry Morris and Derrick Murphy.

I rarely read them, but my classmates have found them helpful...

And for economics, the course our school offers is SL, but it's combined with AP Micro + Macro so it covers roughly the same material as HL.

We are required to buy the economics course companion, and the teacher gives us Economics from a Global Perspective by Alan Glanville and Economics by Samuelson and Nordhaus

For all the IB Mathematics course we use textbooks from Haese & Harris.

But I've not found them helpful as the questions are just way too easy (the HL book at least)

We've also used Understanding Statistics from Oxford Press (I think) for the Stats portion,

and currently using Calculus by Larson, Hosteler, and Edwards and Calculus by Paul A. Foerster

This is all I know, but if you want to know about other subjects I can go find out for you...

Edited May 4, 2008 by chang9121990

[Guest syrianstar]

For all the IB Mathematics course we use textbooks from Haese & Harris.

But I've not found them helpful as the questions are just way too easy (the HL book at least)

Wow this is such a coincidence - our maths teacher just gave us a copy of the CD for this book and told us to check it out to see whether or not we want to order. It looked like quite a good book to me actually.

I do SL maths - so do you think the we should still order the book or will the questions be too easy for us too? Oh wait since you do HL Maths you probably wouldn't know, but can you just tell me how you find the book's explanation? Is it Do It Yourself or do you need a teacher to re - explain?

This is all I know, but if you want to know about other subjects I can go find out for you...

That's very generous of you - my questions have been answered but if there is anyone else with other subjects who requires help, I'm sure they wouldn't mind a reply from you

Edited May 4, 2008 by syrianstar

[chang9121990]

Wow this is such a coincidence - our maths teacher just gave us a copy of the CD for this book and told us to check it out to see whether or not we want to order. It looked like quite a good book to me actually.

I do SL maths - so do you think the we should still order the book or will the questions be too easy for us too? Oh wait since you do HL Maths you probably wouldn't know, but can you just tell me how you find the book's explanation? Is it Do It Yourself or do you need a teacher to re - explain?

lol ya, the Haese & Harris books seem to be really popular for IB Math...

unfortunately, I don't know much about the SL book...

but the level of math skills required for SL should be lower than HL, so it probably won't be a problem?

the explanations are okay, most of them can be understood if you have a fair knowledge of math

however i don't think they do a good job at explaining the more abstract concepts

and because I'm not really good at math I still need a teacher to explain them to me.

having said that...their example problems are pretty good though.

the steps are clear and generally easy to follow

as long as you don't rely solely on this book to prepare for the exam, it won't hurt to have one :innocent:

Edited May 4, 2008 by chang9121990

[heesey1010]

Chemistry - Zumdahl 4th edition and some other book with somewhat long title by Kotz, Treichel and Weaver. We also use the IBID text.

Math - IBID for Core, Haese and Harris for Options, Calculus 5e by James Stewart (great book for the most part)

English - nothing except Elements of Language for grammar purposes.

History - The Cold War by John Lewis Gaddis

Spanish - Conexiones! by Pearson

ToK - (who cares) the IBID book and "Enterprise of Knowledge"

[Guest syrianstar]

Chemistry - Zumdahl 4th edition and some other book with somewhat long title by Kotz, Treichel and Weaver. We also use the IBID text.

Oh my goodness, someone else in the world actually does use the Zumdahl book! I thought we might be the only class suffering from Heavy and Extremely Complicated Textbook Syndrome I hope I'm talking about the same book LOL.

Math - IBID for Core, Haese and Harris for Options, Calculus 5e by James Stewart (great book for the most part)

So you use Haese and Harris too? You might have read from the previous posts that my class is thinking of ordering it and I was just asking around for opinions. Do you do Maths SL or HL and also how do you find the book? Is it self explanatory or simply a waste of paper (like mentioned chemistry book above - I don't want to know how many trees were cut down to make something I know I will never read in my entire life.)

Edited May 4, 2008 by syrianstar

[heesey1010]

Haese and Harris was interesting....it was good at introducing stuff but the problems bordered on "interesting" at times. It really depends on what option you're doing (we were doing Sets, Options, Groups, yuck). There were some typos (just like IBID), but what can you do?

LMAO and Zumdahl was hard but it was good; I especially liked the study guide that came with it. I'm thinking about getting some stray copies at the end of the year when my teacher decides to give them all away.

[QueenSara]

Well, I think the books we use in Biology are really good. Don't remember the authors' names exactly, but the Cambridge "Advanced Biology" by Michael Kent I think (a red, quite thick book) and then we use the new IB study guide (the green one), that's a great one! From what I can remeber the Chemistry students have the same books, but for Chemistry of course.

In Psychology I know they use two books referred to as PiP and PiA (Psychology in Action)

In Business & Management I think the book is quite crappy so I don't like to recommend it.

In the languages we use no books.

[Agneisse]

We use Campbell for Biology - he's kind of verbose, but it's a good book in general. For Math our main textbook is Haese and Harris, but some of our practice problems are drawn from Pure Mathematics 2 by Bostock & Chandler (vectors) and Single Variable Calculus by James Stewart (and a couple others - can't remember) because H&H's practice problems suck. For Chemistry, the IBID book is great. We buy our own novels for English and the teacher just issues notes/worksheets, and photocopies of the official IB instructions for WL, IOP, IOC, etc.

[Bandev]

Some of these might not be relevant now with all the syllabi changes

English A1 - Oxford course companion (ok not great)

Spanish ab initio - Dos Mundos (quite good)

Geography - Geography: An Integrated Approach(Waugh) (very good)

Biology - Biology for the IB diploma (allot) (very good)

- Advanced Biology (Jones and Jones) (very good; descriptive)

- BIOZONE (ok)

- IBID Biology (**** **** ****)

Chem - Chem for ibd (neuss) (V. good

- IBID chem (green damji) (not good)

Maths - Haese&Haese (good)

- Haese&Haese Worked answersbook (my love, my life, my saviour)

[appleme]

Physics - the study guide!!! and the giancoli one

math: sadler & thorning

french b sl: vocabulaire du francais, by claire miquel

[Mandiloquence]

Some of these might not be relevant now with all the syllabi changes

Biology - Biology for the IB diploma (allot) (very good)

- Advanced Biology (Jones and Jones) (very good; descriptive)

- BIOZONE (ok)

- IBID Biology (**** **** ****)

Chem - Chem for ibd (neuss) (V. good

- IBID chem (green damji) (not good)

Maths - Haese&Haese (good)

- Haese&Haese Worked answersbook (my love, my life, my saviour)

I hate Biozone with a burning passion.

And, unfortunately, our school bought us the Damji books instead of Neuss. I really don't know who makes those decisions.

DON'T BUY Zumdahl! It's extremely long, unnecessarily loquacious, and has WAY too much material for SL. If you're HL...meh, I still don't like it.

Biology- Campbell is the only thing I'm ok with.

Spanish-I love love love 2001 idioms(it isn't really a textbook though) and 501 verbs. But we don't use a textbook for Spanish.

Psychology- Glassman saved me, and Myers is ok-ish.

History- The Enduring Vision. It's a huge book and pretty verbose, but if you read it all, you'll know pretty much everything that could possibly be on the HOA exam.

Unfortunately all the other textbooks my school has ordered for us are....less than helpful.

But this is an awesome thread, considering I'm going to go buy some.

[Bandev]

Yeah I am pretty sure that Biozone incites rage, infuriates and angers everyone who encounter that dreadful book, but on the good side it has nice diagrams, but ****ty questions.

[Guest iber2468]

You're in IB, of course most of the textbooks suck.

IB seems to grant monoply to only a few companies (or only a few Presses are insane enough to take up on the offer) so all the good brand names in the States like Princeton Review or Barron's have no IB related material. What a shame!

I really recommend the Oxford study guide for chemistry, the australian blue math ones (i'll check the publisher's later) and Princeton Review/Barron's AP Physics for physics.

[Mandiloquence]

You're in IB, of course most of the textbooks suck.

IB seems to grant monoply to only a few companies (or only a few Presses are insane enough to take up on the offer) so all the good brand names in the States like Princeton Review or Barron's have no IB related material. What a shame!

I really recommend the Oxford study guide for chemistry, the australian blue math ones (i'll check the publisher's later) and Princeton Review/Barron's AP Physics for physics.

Haha, tell me about it! I really prefer REA and Barron's to Princeton though.

What level of math are you referring to for the "australian blue math ones"?

And if you could look up the publisher, I'd greatly appreciate it! My 2 math books are both out of print and not helpful AT ALL.

[Silviana]

Hmm... not all that many people here do economics!

Anyway, we use alan glanville's economics from a global perspective and the oxford A level book, which is jam packed with diagrams.

Since when did we need books for TOK? We just get given handouts... I'm worried now.

[Guest quisquis]

German A1 HL: No specific textbook... just photocopies, I guess.

English A2 HL: dito

Geography SL: Ahem. It would have made my life a lot easier if I had had a IB-specific textbook or revision guide there. Sadly, I didn't really have. This said, I used Geography: An Integrated Approach (Waugh / Nelson & Thornes) and Population, Resources and Development (Chrispin / Jegede/ Landmark Geography), but both of them are rather A-levels focused.

Biology HL: Campbell & Reece if you enjoy Biology. Allott (OUP) as absolutely mandatory revision guide ;-)

Mathematics SL: Eventually, we ended up with the IBID one, but our teacher made us buy tons of other books first, such as Rayner Higher GCSE Mathematics (OUP) and Edexcel GCSE Mathematics, which was rather pointless. Oh, and we used the Haese&Harris Revision Guide.

IBID is nice and well explained, Haese&Harris is okay, though I chose to rather work on old exam papers than on their revision questions.

Latin SL: No book. You probably don't use course companions anymore at this stage.

[Guest julz_90]

biology & geography: I agree with quisquis (I really really wish you that your geography teacher comes up with better material than ours...)

for maths: haese & harris and the IBID book are both very very good (also the one for the HL options) but watch out: there are really tooo many typing mistakes (even in the theory parts, some essential formulae are wrong). so always keep in mind that if you don't understand something it might be the book's fault and not yours