Math SL/Studies

[rednaxela]

I am in grade 11 right now and am taking math SL. I am really struggling. In the winter mock exams we had, I got a 2/7 for P1 and a 2/7 for P2. My recent in-class test was not that much better either (3 but 1 point from a 2). I am worried that I might not pass with SL math at all. Should I move down or is it too late? Do you guys think I will get better grades if I work more / get more tutoring?

[kw0573]

Not all of studies content is covered in SL, so there's a chance that you need to learn new content. What is your experience thus far in your academic career? Did you always performed poorly in math? How are your classmates doing? What does your teacher offer in terms of extra help outside of class time / is the teacher generally willing to answer questions?

[rednaxela]

I used to be quite good in math actually but over the last ca. 3 years my grades in math have continuously dropped with content getting more and more challenging. I know there are some of my classmates that also have similarly bad grades but none are as bad as mine. My teacher is helpful but she, unfortunately, has a pretty heavy accent and is not native in English which makes explaining a lot of things challenging for her and makes it difficult for us to understand her sometimes. I have been getting some tutoring lessons from one of my classmates but they have not been consistent enough unfortunately.

[inriya]

3 hours ago, rednaxela said:

I used to be quite good in math actually but over the last ca. 3 years my grades in math have continuously dropped with content getting more and more challenging. I know there are some of my classmates that also have similarly bad grades but none are as bad as mine. My teacher is helpful but she, unfortunately, has a pretty heavy accent and is not native in English which makes explaining a lot of things challenging for her and makes it difficult for us to understand her sometimes. I have been getting some tutoring lessons from one of my classmates but they have not been consistent enough unfortunately.

I would recommend that you should get tutoring lessons from professional Maths teachers instead of your classmates. Even when your classmates might perform well on maths, they do not have the experience to teach you well when they are learning the content themselves too.  If you can find someone who is more experienced, for example, a teacher (with less accent), or someone who has graduated with a high score in Math SL,  it would be much easier.  If not, keep asking your teacher. Make sure you understand everything before leaving despite the accent, or ask her to use numbers and diagrams to demonstrate how she calculated the answers. 

My maths was bad from Middle School. Luckily I got someone who had graduated a few years before me to teach me during my IBDP period, and I was able to score a 7/7 in my Maths SL in the end. You are definitely not alone, and I'm sure you can improve your maths.