IB Maths From The Perspective of a 10th Grader
AyÅŸe Defne Orhan
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In this article, as a 10th grader who started the IB program a few months ago, I will discuss my first-term IB Maths experience and takeaways.
Affected by the upper classes' anecdotes, I was a bit scared and confused about the expectations of the IB program at first. On the first day, when our teacher explained the course content and expectations, I thought to myself: here we start and I felt motivated to study.
Then, quizzes started and nearly every week we had a quiz. Although studying for quizzes was stressful, it really helped me study for the exam since I was reviewing the material regularly for the quizzes, which significantly reduced my workload. Additionally, I realized that instead of stressing out about quizzes and grades, seeing them as a learning opportunity is the best approach to improve and motivate myself. In fact, I determined the question types that I struggle with, which I spend more time studying for.
Even though I studied, the first exam went mid for me. I felt nervous, especially in the last minutes, which negatively affected my grade and deteriorated my performance. Then, our teacher wanted us to write a reflection for the first exam. When I examined my exam I noticed that most of the questions I had mistaken were due to time stress. In reflection, I wrote that despite I think I studied pretty much, I aim to study even harder, revise daily, and do more practice by resolving worksheets and lecture notes while solving more diverse and comprehensive IB questions for the upcoming exam. Now that I understand the need to pay attention to the lecture note questions, and external questions from websites that our teachers strongly recommend such as Revision Village and Nickolaidis, I more or less planned my new working plan and strategy.
After the November break, I was away from school for a week because I went to the US for a school competition. When I returned to school, I discovered that I missed a lot of topics and that each math lesson is crucially important to comprehend the topics and questions. Honestly, I had difficulty in catching up with math classes and due to my week-long absence, my quiz grades dropped. This caused me to feel upset, regretful, and demotivated at first, but after a while, I decided to make a comeback. I solved math problems from different sources whenever I had time to catch up. For the unsolved questions, I went to the office hours of my teacher. At some point, during lunch breaks each day I was always in an office hour. Plus, after my long absence, I promised not to miss any math classes for a while and listened to the teacher even more carefully.
Then came the second exam for the first semester. I was more confident and less stressed for the second math exam because I worked harder and did my best after all. The exam went way better than the first one and I was way more successful in stress and time management during the exam.
The first semester of IB Maths taught me a few lessons. Most importantly, paying close attention to the questions that the teacher highlights, reviewing regularly, and studying by solving a wide range of questions are directly proportional to success. So, study, study, and study. I also learned that focusing on learning and improving myself benefits me better than putting pressure on myself for grades. Viewing the IB journey as a process and trying your best to enhance yourself is probably a good approach to tackle IB.
Lately, I avoid comparing myself or getting obsessed with grades and instead concentrate on my development over time.
I believe that hard work pays off eventually. When I feel tired or overwhelmed, I remind myself that everything will be alright and that I will succeed in the end.
These are my experiences of the first semester of IB Maths so far. Hope you can relate and enjoy.