How to become a successful IB candidate

[mizyou]

Im doing a project on how to become a successful IB candidate.

and since we are all IB candidates, I would like to know your thoughts and opinions on this.

What do YOU think students should do to become a successful IB candidate?

Any ideas you come up with is fine!

Thank you for your help

[__inthemaking]

Know the syllabi for all your subjects like the back of your own hand.

Don't procrastinate too badly for IAs.

Don't leave CAS till the last minute.

Do all the past papers for every subject you have that you can find.

[herong2x]

this is what my seniors told me

1. do your homeworks right away

2. dont leave anything until the last minute (IA, CAS, reports)

3. do not use wikipedia

and i am not following any of those except the 3rd one

but wish you the best of luck!

[becca_mae57]

You can use Wikipedia for the outside sources at the bottom of the page, but otherwise Wikipedia is a big no-no. If you ever have any free time (HAHA, thats a good one...), then going to sites like this: http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/index.php?title=International_Baccalaureate is an amusing way to be comforted in the fact that you aren't the only insane person trying to get the IB diploma.

[dragooneer]

The biggest point I'd have to stress is this:

The important IB stuff you're required to get done for Diploma is on such a massive scale that it's impossible to get it done if you procrastinate. CAS is expected to be ~150 hours, EE is a 4000 word beast, TOK essays require ridiculous amounts of revision to be respectable, etc. IAs (except for History and Math [and math only if you're bad with formula editors]) and classwork can generally be procrastinated, but the IB stuff CANNOT.

Other useful hints:

- Learn to survive on much lower amounts of sleep than the average person if you have terrible work ethic like me, expect your bedtime to fall around midnight most nights. After a while your body gets used to it, and you can always make it up by sleeping for 12 hours on weekends.

- Select people you actually like working with for your TOK oral assignment. If you have a bad team dynamic expect the oral (and practice oral) to be as pleasant as driving pins under your fingertips.

- Take philosophy. Despite the class being pretty damn difficult, it'll give you a massive head start on TOK.

[deissi]

- Take philosophy. Despite the class being pretty damn difficult, it'll give you a massive head start on TOK.

This isn't very smart, is it. No point in taking a class you possibly don't like just because it will give you a head start in a class that is basically worth nothing, only 1.5 points out of 45 maximum. By taking Philosophy, you therefore possibly lose several marks if you take it instead of a social science that actually interests you, like Economics or History. If you like Philosophy, and you're interested in it, go for it, but I really don't see anyone succeeding in the subject without liking it.

[Tilia]

- Take philosophy. Despite the class being pretty damn difficult, it'll give you a massive head start on TOK.

You won't survive philsophy without being seriously into it. It's not "an easy seven" as people might think!

[__inthemaking]

- Take philosophy. Despite the class being pretty damn difficult, it'll give you a massive head start on TOK.

TOK is really one of the easier IB requirements..I didn't find it to be difficult at all. I don't think it's really necessary to take philosophy to prep for it, especially since most IB diploma students have limited electives due to the nature of the program and IB philosophy isn't offered at all schools.

Also, just wanted to point out that the EE isn't as traumatizing and time consuming as it first appears. I remember when I was in IB1, all the IB2 kids scared the heck out of me telling me that they were doing research everyday, had written 10 rough drafts already etc etc.

In the end I spent roughly 4 weekends researching at the library, 2 days making an outline and filtering out my sources, 3 days to write it and I only had 2 rough drafts before writing my final copy and got an A on it. So really it's not that scary . Just make sure you choose your research question wisely.

Edited May 28, 2009 by __inthemaking

[Tilia]

Also, just wanted to point out that the EE isn't as traumatizing and time consuming as it first appears. I remember when I was in IB1, all the IB2 kids scared the heck out of me telling me that they were doing research everyday, had written 10 rough drafts already etc etc.

That's consoling

[bohemian03]

Two words:

Time Management.

Don't leave anything until the last minute. If you can manage your time wisely, you will be successful in the IB - according to my Math teacher... and she has two kids who are doing the IB.

[Forester]

- don't stress unnecessarily.

[IBS09]

I'd say pace yourself. If you procrastinate all the time, you will die when everything is due in a 1-week span. If you stress out all the time, you will burn out in 3 months and basically be a walking zombie for the rest of the year. My personal experience from IB is that there are stretches of lots of work crammed together and some periods of relatively less work. When you don't have 3 IAs due the next week, use that time to do stuff normal people do. You'll need the extra gas in 3 in the morning with your Bio Lab IA and EE outline due

[Mattias]

Well, hard work is number one, obviously.

However, I'd say there are some key things that not everyone does.

1. Make sure you use your holidays wisely. You might as well get ahead if you aren't doing anything special during your holidays, and I'm sure it'll eventually help you in the long run if you get started on your work earlier.

2. Pace yourself and make sure you have a schedule for each term of your school year. Between CAS and other personal things, you're not going to have a whole lot of time on your hands. Make a schedule before hand.

3. Use your personal reading time to reading textbooks. No more Hemingway for you!

4. Choose the right subjects. If you are going into a liberal arts type of field, then of course maths won't be extremely necessary. However, Math or Math studies? Of course, Standard math is always better. However, if you think you'd get a 7 in studies and a 5 in standard and you are doing a liberal arts, take the studies.

5. Make sure that you have more than the amount required for CAS. You're going to be competing with a bunch of other IB students, so in this regard you can show that you are different from the other by showing you are not simply a academics only type person.

[genius wannabe]

5. Make sure that you have more than the amount required for CAS. You're going to be competing with a bunch of other IB students, so in this regard you can show that you are different from the other by showing you are not simply a academics only type person.

But .. don't some people say its not smart to do that? I mean .. I've seen a couple of posts around here saying that you should only spend the 150 hours on CAS, or else you're just wasting your time going beyond the requirements. I don't know, I'm starting IB1 this year, and I don't want to do extra hours and then find out it was useless, that I could've used those extra hours to do homework or something. What's the best way to go?

Edited June 14, 2009 by genius wannabe

[__inthemaking]

5. Make sure that you have more than the amount required for CAS. You're going to be competing with a bunch of other IB students, so in this regard you can show that you are different from the other by showing you are not simply a academics only type person.

But .. don't some people say its not smart to do that? I mean .. I've seen a couple of posts around here saying that you should only spend the 150 hours on CAS, or else you're just wasting your time going beyond the requirements. I don't know, I'm starting IB1 this year, and I don't want to do extra hours and then find out it was useless, that I could've used those extra hours to do homework or something. What's the best way to go?

You'll probably end up with 150+ hours even if you didn't intend to. I ended up with ~600 hours just because some of the volunteer work was long term commitment so I did it for 6 months-1 year and racked up a lot of hours just for that one activity. Everyone in my graduating class ended up with more than 150 hours even though we didn't purposefully do it.

[Sandwich]

Don't do the IB

Seriously, I wouldn't. Anyway, IMO, work really hard for the whole two years and bully your teachers to make sure your coursework/EE/TOK is done before Feb of IB2. Revise for as long a period as possible. Do all the past papers. Don't waste time on their pointless work (word matching for language B, anybody?) if it's obviously pointless and you could do something more constructive. Literally, become an independent learner, because nobody is looking out for you any more!

I also wouldn't waste time on CAS. Once you have the minimum, that's all you'll ever need, and you'll probably need all the rest of those hundred hours writing up reflections anyway! Ahah. Oh and get signatures when you do the tasks originally, or have a friend with an excellent set of handwriting varieties. I finished off stuff and had no way of re-contacting the person who supervised me! :X

Philosophy =/= TOK in my opinion. TOK is all the most ridiculous bits of Philosophy, all associated with education, crammed into a corner. Questions without answers which you're supposed to answer! I found them completely different courses. It helps if you're analytical and can see where you're making oversights in your reasoning, but then that's a skill, not something they teach you in Philosophy. It'll help for nearly any subject. Being good at TOK usually means you're good at Philosophy and vice versa, but neither are teachable things, IMO.

[Tilia]

I agree with what Alice said about ToK and philosophy. Also, PLANNING YOUR TIME is very important and don't procastinate! Spend time on the IAs.

But remember to not break down from stress. One needs to have fun as well.

[Bandev]

I found TOK an exercise in giving the IB what it wanted if you read the mark scheme carefully and make sure that you have everything in your essay in an intelligent manner you are guaranteed an A/B.

Relax once in awhile, procrstinate a bit.

Pace yourself - one of my friend burnt out and ended up with a mark two less than what she should have had.

4000 isn't that much, it's good for you -(I do 16000 words a semester at uni, plus a couple of exams).

Create some sort of generic timetable for your week it helps with the guilt motivation and organisation.

Convince yourself you have a mark to reach even if you don't really have any motivation to get this mark (I did this and exceeded my goal by one mark).You have the potential to convince yourself to do anything.

Exercise- this doesn't work for everyone but it is a good stress release

Keep things in perspective IB manages to destroy some people's sense of reality (a lot of them do well but they are really sad to watch)

You can read books for pleasure if you want, I did, they helped.

Enjoy it or at least convince yourself that you like it. I loved it, if I didn't I would have gotten a much lower mark.