Starting the IB Diploma Successfully
Beginning your IB Diploma can seem a bit daunting, especially if it is your first experience of IB education. That's why we've asked IB expert and Peak Study Resources author, Joe Gauci, to put together some top tips on how to become a successful IBDP student. Joe's advice can help you develop the study skills and work habits that will make your IB studies more manageable and allow you to enjoy the two years of your Diploma. Don't wait until your final year to get it right, follow Joe's advice and get started today.
Dealing with the demands of the IB Diploma
The IB Diploma is a fantastic programme offering students a wide range of stimulating academic subjects. Each of your 6 subjects will have a coursework element, the Internal Assessment. In addition, the Diploma Core binds the different elements of the Diploma programme together, providing in ToK an understanding of how approaches to knowledge in your subject areas differ; in the Extended Essay, an opportunity to engage in in-depth independent research; and, in CAS, helping ensure that you develop a wider array of interests, taking up new activities, encompassing service, action and creative. All of this means that, in order to be successful, and to ensure that you enjoy the two years of the Diploma programme, effective time-management is key. So, here are some ideas to help you manage your time:
- create a work and assignment planner, either on your device or on paper;
- use your planner to record work deadlines and to schedule when you will complete work - this will help you to avoid leaving work until just before the deadline;
- for major assignments such as IAs and the Extended Essay, break them down into a series of stages and schedule when you will complete them by. For example, schedule a date for when you will complete your research, another date for when you will create a plan and further dates for producing your first draft and your final draft.
Understanding key command terms & mark schemes
Another key to success in the IBDP is to make sure that you understand what key command terms in questions mean. So, in writing History essays, for example, you need to be aware of the difference between an essay that asks you to ‘evaluate’ and an essay that asks you to ‘examine’. An explanation of the command terms for each subject can be found in the IB subject guides and, if in doubt, ask your teacher.
Similarly, it is very important that you become familiar with the mark schemes for the subjects you are studying, so that you understand exactly how marks are awarded and you can then shape your answers so that they meet the demands of the question precisely, maximising the effectiveness of your response.
How to take good notes
A vital study skill is effective note taking. One top tip on note taking is to try wherever possible to condense information as concisely as possible and, if you are taking notes from a book or an article, to put things in your own words rather than copying out whole sentences from the original text. One of the big advantages of this approach is that it makes you process the information, ensuring that you understand it because you are having to filter out what is important from what is not and then articulating it in a different form of words.
Another key to successful study is to review your notes regularly, this helps your recall of the information but also provides you with the opportunity to identify where you have gaps in your notes or your knowledge, which you can then look to plug. In this respect, I would strongly recommend that, instead of filling your page, from margin to margin and top to bottom, with writing, that you use a noting system similar to the Cornell System which involves dividing your A4 or A3 page into 2, 3, or 4 sections, leaving ample space to summarise key points, add in key questions and, crucially, to add in further information when you revisit your notes at a later date, for example, when you are revising for a test or an exam. So, don’t think of making notes as a one-off process but rather as a continuous process that you are adding to over the duration of your course.
The importance of wider reading
Finally, your teachers undoubtedly will advise you, quite rightly, to read as widely as possible. This means not just reading your textbooks and class handouts, but, in addition, reading other academic resources, whether books or articles, online or in hard copy.
In order to make wider reading manageable, try to read regularly but make it little and often; take 15 or 20 minutes each day or at least several days a week to read, instead of setting unrealistic targets of trying to fit longer spells of wider reading, which might only be achievable in holiday time. Reading more widely and listening to podcasts will deepen your understanding and increase your confidence and enjoyment of your subjects, enriching your experience of studying for the Diploma.
More advice for success in your IB Diploma
As you go through your IB Diploma we hope you find that Joe’s tips and advice prove useful. Remember, don’t wait to get started on implementing his best practice, do yourself a big favour and start as you mean to go on. Sort out your schedule, get organised, and keep working on developing those good study habits. If you find yourself in need of a bit more help, especially in your trickier subjects, be sure to check out our free subject resources pages where our IB authors share their top tips and IB study advice. You can find even more support in our online store where you can purchase our subject-specific IB study guides offering expert help on everything from History to Mathematics.
