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How to Improve in Mathematics SL during the summer?


nazzy19

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Review topics you struggled with. Try to do past paper questions related to topics you've already covered.

I don't think there's much use in studying ahead unless you know you're a slow learner and can teach yourself the basics to the point where you can learn it well with your classmates the second time around.

Go through the formulas provided in the exam booklet relating to the topics you've covered and make sure you understand how to use them.

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Yea, you definitely must nail down the stuff in maths sl year 1, as it will all be incorporated into your tests, during the next year.

Besdies fromt eh above, you could also redo the revision/topic tests that you had the previous year, to see if you have improved or not, and if not which areas need the most attention. If you have any school textbooks for IB maths, try doing some of the relevant questions in there as well.

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well.. the way i do it is. you look over the exam papers that you have done before. Note the things / topics that you are struggling with and go to the syllabus and highlight it. Try to revise and read the textbook yourself and do some exercises that will help you remember the concept.

This will also help you revise before the actual IB exam, so you dont have to go through every single topic again.

attached.. the syllabus if you need it

Subject%20guide%202008.pdf

Edited by watermelon
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A lot of other people have said you should do exercises which help you remember the concept, however this works only for those people who do not suffer from the bizarre phenomenon of mathematical amnesia. I do!

Personally I have the ability to do a mathematical problem 10+ times perfectly on Monday morning and have forgotten entirely how to do it by Tuesday lunchtime to the extent that the whole thing has gone from being comprehensible to looking like some terrible unknown nonsensical code and, to be frank, scares me.

I even forgot how to integrate and differentiate in my actual exam having been doing nothing but solid integration and differentiation perfectly for at least three days leading up to and including the hours/minutes/seconds before I went into the exam room. SEVERE mathematical amnesia, I tell you! :no: I also forgot how to do matrices, but we'll skip that...

If, like me, you can't remember a blasted thing within hours of having understood and done something perfectly, I wouldn't recommend practising on past questions at this stage. You might end up remembering the answers for when you actually do need the practice... but failing to know how to do it. I suggest doing a few past questions and, once you've got the hang of it, writing out your thought process completely to show yourself how you came to that conclusion, what all the exceptions are and what all the strange little rules are. I find that being able to read that kind of thing again (very slowly XD) brings it all flooding back :wub: Save all of the crazy practice questions for just before the exam when they're most likely to stick in your mind (if they ever will :( ).

Via this technique I turned my predicted 4 into a 6 for the real thing, despite forgetting entire topics in the exam! ;) Possibly this only applies for people with mathematical amnesia. I am very convinced that it is a true condition, because I otherwise have a pretty good memory o__O; Or maybe part of my brain got squished when I was a child, who knows.

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A lot of other people have said you should do exercises which help you remember the concept, however this works only for those people who do not suffer from the bizarre phenomenon of mathematical amnesia. I do!

Personally I have the ability to do a mathematical problem 10+ times perfectly on Monday morning and have forgotten entirely how to do it by Tuesday lunchtime to the extent that the whole thing has gone from being comprehensible to looking like some terrible unknown nonsensical code and, to be frank, scares me.

I even forgot how to integrate and differentiate in my actual exam having been doing nothing but solid integration and differentiation perfectly for at least three days leading up to and including the hours/minutes/seconds before I went into the exam room. SEVERE mathematical amnesia, I tell you! :no: I also forgot how to do matrices, but we'll skip that...

If, like me, you can't remember a blasted thing within hours of having understood and done something perfectly, I wouldn't recommend practising on past questions at this stage. You might end up remembering the answers for when you actually do need the practice... but failing to know how to do it. I suggest doing a few past questions and, once you've got the hang of it, writing out your thought process completely to show yourself how you came to that conclusion, what all the exceptions are and what all the strange little rules are. I find that being able to read that kind of thing again (very slowly :() brings it all flooding back :wub: Save all of the crazy practice questions for just before the exam when they're most likely to stick in your mind (if they ever will :( ).

Via this technique I turned my predicted 4 into a 6 for the real thing, despite forgetting entire topics in the exam! ;) Possibly this only applies for people with mathematical amnesia. I am very convinced that it is a true condition, because I otherwise have a pretty good memory o__O; Or maybe part of my brain got squished when I was a child, who knows.

Yay I'm not the only one who suffers from this terrible disease XD

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  • 2 weeks later...

Yay I'm not the only one who suffers from this terrible disease :P

Make that three :noob:

My anit-ability to remember math-stuff is so unmeasurably great ... that I count for two.

It makes me cry.

Doesn't matter how much I studied or how much I have tried to remember how it's done.

Once I sit there and everyone's frantically typing stuff into their calculators I just sit there and go ...

uhm. okay. How did that work again. ... glorious I tell you.

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