Useful things to do between IB Year 1 and IB Year 2

[bescherelle]

Title explains it.

Just completed year 1 ib.

Activities that I will do over the summer are:

1)Cas stuff

2) Extended Essay

3) World Lit Papers (atleast 1)

4) try to read hamlet? and other A1 texts

what other useful things can i do in terms of my 6 courses. english HL bio/chem HL french SL and tok lol

[rrswong]

Revise, revise, revise! Do heaps of questions for Biology and Chemistry, I think, would help as well. Remember to relax a little as well!

[sweetnsimple786]

I understand reading assigned summer texts, but I don't know that it's helpful to read the other texts, unless you plan to reread or at least thoroughly skim them when your class reads each book. It'd be like me trying to read Heart of Darkness during winter break, knowing it was coming up and wanting to get it out of the way. Result? I'd be confused and wouldn't necessarily get anything out of it. Then when I try to do class assignments related to it, I'd be like "This really isn't easier the second time!" But that's me =)

This might be how I describe the last half of June, but I'm using summer to procrastinate. Every time I feel guilty, I store that emotion. It's like I'm hoarding it! So this time next month, when I try to slack off, I'll release some of that guilt. Bahaha [And yeah, I have tried that before, to varying levels of success]

I'll try to work on WL2, try to get a subject for the EE, and prep myself for the TOK essay by looking over the titles, oh and the summer assignments and revising for biology, history, and math. Can't do much more. CAS'll start up on its own and should be wrapped up in 30 days anyways.

[Sandwich]

Depending on what you want to study at university, relevant work experience or various tasks which're going to look really good on a personal statement

For instance a leadership course or holding some sort of position of responsibility is a great idea. Definitely

I also happen to think that one of the best things you can do with the sciences is to go back over them using the syllabus (particularly for Biology, the Chemistry one is considerably less helpful so you should probably stick to using a textbook you know to be very IB-specific alongside the syllabus) and make good, solid notes you'll be able to use for the actual thing. That'll do for Biology - for Chemistry you should also find some past papers and start going over the multiple choice, and it's a real test of what you know and what you don't. There'll be a lot of evil tricky questions in the chem past papers and it should hopefully scare you enough to go back and desperately learn every last detail xP Really, you never know what you don't know with chem until you've done those multi choice questions and wondered why every single answer sounds correct!

Obviously it's important to do your EE, WL essays etc, so that's just if you have time for revision. I reckon, if you're going to revise, you should take the right approach from the word go and, IMO, that's the best way to do it! I'd do the same if I could go back in time!

[__inthemaking]

Read all your English works, FOR SURE. I did that the summer between IB1 and IB2 and I'm so thankful because during the school year, my teacher timed the works wrong and we ended up spending one month on King Lear but one week on Crime and Punishment (which is like 650 pages :/). But as I had already read all of the works, I didn't have to spend time rereading all of them again.

It's also nice to get all your CAS out of the way, I finished CAS that summer and all I had left to do were the reflections and the paperwork.

I never did my WL essays over the summer because we weren't given any info about it until February, but if you can then that's great.

[karenzae]

I was assigned A Fine Balance for summer reading, so I read that (and loved it. I would highly recommend it, even if it isn't assigned reading for you). I also have a bunch of articles to read and take notes on for Anthropology, and I'm just starting that now. Finally, I had planned to finish a first draft of my extended essay over the summer, so we'll see how that goes... I'm only just beginning my serious research. Hopefully I'll get into the swing of things soon.

Mostly, though, I want to relax. I think after a year of IB, we all deserve a good break. That's why I'm not stressing about reading/working ahead in any subjects where work wasn't assigned for the summer. I spend enough time doing that for our internal end of year exams, so I already have some good notes for most of my subjects.

[godofib]

Yes, between the years, the most important thing to do is to RELAX! But after your are done relaxing I think it is a good idea to get some intense CAS hours done, EE started, reveiw some notes for HL courses, etc.

[Tilia]

Remember that even IB students are humans and not machines. You need to relax and have fun as well. In fact, even machines need to recharge their batteries...

But we are assigned the EE over the summer, so you better write that at least. Then I've written my WL, revised some chemistry, finished a chapter in Maths, read The Reader, which is on our reading list for A1, in German (yey, killing two birds with one stone), prepared my mock ToK essay and in a few days I'm going on a revision course for physics. Then I ought to read some Mill as well.

But it's no use just stressing over what you should be doing. Try to calm down and relax. IB is stressy enough, there is no need to stress even over holidays.

[snowscar]

This summer I have finished my Business & Management IA, started with my EE (got like 40% done of the first draft), and started a bit with my History IA.

I'll try and maybe revise some maths too, if I find the time.

But there's time to enjoy as well, as all the others have said. Don't overload yourself with homework.

[~vola]

I just finished IB, heading off to college in a month (literally, move-in day is Aug 15), and up until a few days ago, my summer agenda consisted of "sleep," "go to Curves with sister," "sleep," and "sleep." I've since been told that it's "not required but strongly recommended" that I read the first half of the Odyssey in preparation for my Honors class. "Not required but strongly recommended" is college-speak for "if you don't do it you'll fail, but you're an adult now so that's your decision." My sister, who is going into tenth grade, has already read the Odyssey and is highly amused by the fact that I'm probably going to ask her for help understanding it.

I guess I'm lucky since the summer between IB1 and 2 for me was mostly full of my sister in rehearsal for a benefit show of High School Musical in an attempt to save a local musical theater company. I helped paint sets, and subsequently faces at the weekend pre-show pep rallies they held, and got an easy 10 or so Creativity hours from it. It's hard to get a lot of Creativity hours in a single sitting unless you paint a huge mural or something, and even then - CAS be damned - I'd rather get paid for that kind of work. I also wrote my EE in roughly two days, but then again I got a D on it, so there's probably something to be said for that.

[randomlilnikki]

I would recommend taking a good break and not stressing too much, or you will burn out in IB2. I think that it's a good idea to make exam notes for subjects you will have exams for, so that when it comes to exam time, you aren't freaking out about what you learned first year. I wouldn't try to write my entire EE, because I really didn't even touch it over my holidays, but I did some research which helped. And I did some fun CAS stuff. But mostly I just slept... hehe.

[Tania V]

In our school, they expect us to have a first draft of any official paper that we are supposed to submit in IB2, done by the end of the summer. This includes:

EE,

TOK essay,

WLA(1+2) (English)

WLA 1 (Greek)

Math IA

But I also feel that if I don't revise during the summer, everything I learnt in IB1 will just evaporate from my brain. Some teachers have also advised us to go further in the sullabus by studying in advance some chapters that we'll be covering next year(eg. the Options in Biology), so that we don't stress too much in the fall, when we'll have all these other things to do (eg. university applications). And the surprising thing (or maybe not that surprising) is that the majority of teachers advised us against relaxing too much, saying we're gonna lose our momentum for the next year. I know it sounds harsh, but if you really consider all the inordinate amount of things an IB student needs to have done by the middle of the second year, they are quite right, I think.

[Sandwich]

^^ I know people say to relax over the IB1 summer so as to avoid burnout, but really, it's by not relaxing and keeping everything at a slow, steady and comfortable rate which ultimately avoids burnout in IB2 -- and given that that's when all the exams and revision fall, that's the burnout to be avoiding!

As somebody who did die a very short and violent death by deadline in IB2, I can only recommend against it, if only for your mental wellbeing!