How do I study for Maths SL?

[Great Polar Bear]

I'm not in new. I'm in the second term of the IB and I'm still struggling with Maths. Currently, my summer holidays are on and I'm trying to brush my Maths because it is the only subject I've scored poorly in. I've not got more than a 2. That's horrible. I get 4-6 in other subjects but a 2 in Maths SL which really pulls my score down from say 30-32 to 25-26. This sucks. I've been working on my other subjects and trying to look at my weak points in each but I can't do anything about Maths. Since I joined a little late, my base of functions is very poor. Functions keeps getting complicated with every new chapter and I'm still struggling with the basics. But now, I opened "Solution To Triangles", the chapter about the sine rule, cosine rule, radians and all. I have the book saved as a PDF. As soon as I sat down to study Maths, my head starts boiling and my blood has an angry, nervous rush. I have mild social anxiety which brings about nervousness. But this is crazy. I feel irritated when I'm not able to do Math because I know I can do it but I don't seem to get a start. When I see the first question, I try remembering the concept. So I decided to open my book. Searching for the chapter in the introduction in a PDF was very hard. Because there were over 700 pages and the scroll thingy on the right was so ****ing tiny that it took me 5 minutes to find the chapter. Then I start reading and get irritated, because it starts the book starts off from the basics, which I know. Then I can't find the formulae. I'm tired of going on Google and looking for all the formulae one by one. It's tough looking at them in the PDF. And I just feel like crying because I can't do Math. Not because I can't solve the problem. But because solving the some takes me great time and effort. Not because I have a problem implementing the formula and applying it, but because it kills me just to find the formula and get the type of question. It is so irritating. I wish I had all the formulae together and all the different question types put together. If I analyse my own problem, I see that I'm having difficulties because of highly disorganized resources. I know I should have purchased the book but I acted like a cheap-a&&. What should I do to be more organized with Maths? Other than functions, I have a hang of all the chapters, but finding stuff and wasting so much time on it is irritating me, it is driving me crazy. My blood flow is super fast right now and I feel like crying my a&& off because Maths is killing my life. I'm fine at it, but I don't seem to get a base, a start. (In the past, when I've got a start, I've done fine). What should I do? Please tell me. Some websites with formulae/concepts could really help (specific to IB). Thanks so much.

Edited June 10, 2013 by helpfulbucket

[Lero]

Find a copy of the Math SL data booklet online. A quick google search of what I just wrote, 'Math SL data booklet', should yield a fruitful result, click the first link. No more sifting through the textbook for formulae ever again.

[Great Polar Bear]

I feel so stupid ! I did not think of this. Thanks so much. The data booklet is sure gonna help!

[GirlwiththeBlueBox]

Go through as many previous exams as possible. The only way to get really good at Maths if you're not naturally a maths person is to practise problem sets!!!

[ak18]

Just download as many past papers as you can and start solving them. If there is a topic you're a bit shaky on, go through that particular section of the textbook and then do the problems. And go through the data booklet and familiarize yourself with it. It'll definitely save time during the finals. Also, become really comfortable with your graphics calculator. There's plenty of shortcuts that'll save you time, which is really useful for Paper 2.

[annikam96]

I made myself a study sheet with all the important formulas and things like sine and cosine function, so you have easy access to the most important things you need to solve a problem faster.

[SurajM]

I would really not only just look at the past papers, but look specifically at the mark schemes for each. The good thing the IB does is in most cases it will provide a step-by-step working of the problem....though some basic steps will not be shown. The best way I would say to do well in maths is first of try not to look at it as such a challenge. I promise you that the actual papers are quite straight forward. Section A consists of basic concepts. Once you've fully mastered section A, section B is just an application of many of the same topics in a more elaborate sum.

Hopefully your textbook comes with worked examples for each type of lesson in the book. Pay close attention to each, and furthermore, work each one out. You will definately not be able to reproduce the same method in the exam hall if you never put your pen on the paper. It's a long process but use the next 2-3 months intensely and it will be easy from there on

[by.andrew]

For maths, practice is the only way to go. In my opinion, this is the only subject where solving more problems will be more helpful than trying to memorize concepts.

Furthermore, if you look at the past exams, you only have to know a couple of key concepts to get enough marks for the 6 or 7.

For instance, I know that this year's exam had a super easy logarithm question worth 7 marks or so that kept on popping up on the previous exams... The same with graphing functions and knowing how to work with inverse functions. The questions are usually similar in style, so just practice those types of questions for your exam.

[SmileBeloved]

The math book is challenging. (If you use anything like mine.)

Best bet is getting the SL Math Question bank with past IB papers, it's really well organized into topics.

It shows you a step-by-step solution to the math papers.
Thing I used to study for my math exam.

Best of luck!