While the IB Math Analysis and Approaches SL course may seem daunting to many IB students, it is not too late to start improving your mathematical abilities to do well. To be successful in this course, you must be able to do two things:
Understand theory
Apply theory
Hence, it is crucial that you make sure to understand all the concepts presented in class to solve the problems afterward. If you can do certain problems but cannot understand the motivation behind the steps taken, you will find yourself unsuccessful at solving questions of a different style. Likewise, if you read over math notes without working through the examples, you will have a huge difficulty solving any of the problems on the test.
Below, I have presented some general strategies you could implement to enhance your performance in this course.
Read Over The Course Syllabus
Know what to expect. If possible, start by reading some of the textbook chapters beforehand. In this class, you are expected to study the following topics.
Topic 1: Number and Algebra
Topic 2: Functions
Topic 3: Geometry and trigonometry
Topic 4: Statistics and Probability
Topic 5: Calculus
In my opinion, topics 1 and 2 are not that bad. Topics 3, 4, and 5 may be slightly harder because it introduces different and more abstract ideas compared to topics 1 and 2.
A good habit to have is to take advantage of your course outline. Start by reading the material for that day before class starts. If you understand it already, great. If you don’t, that’s fine too, that’s what the class time is for, but at least you now have an idea of what the lesson is going to be about. Being able to learn by yourself independently without the aid of somebody else is a great skill to have while completing this course.
Start Homework Early
Don’t procrastinate your homework, doing it as soon as possible improves your study quality and work ethic. That way, you can quickly recognize concepts you don’t understand and ask your teacher about them as quickly as you can. You shouldn’t leave questions unanswered until the last minute, as it takes away the time you could’ve spent doing problems! In some textbooks, questions may be labeled as “hard” or “challenging”. DO THEM, or at least attempt to. These are the types of questions that test your understanding of the subject, and they definitely show up on the later parts of unit tests and final papers, so make sure to become familiar with them! If you’re going to skip homework questions (to allocate time for other subjects), skip the easier ones that you know for sure how to do, and engage more with the harder ones. Most of your learning comes from doing tough and challenging problems, not by repeatedly doing easier questions.
Grind Extra Problems
There are many resources online where past IB questions can be found. Getting comfortable doing IB-style questions will lead to a greater sense of familiarity when you do your actual IB exams. You can get a sense of what questions are generally asked, and more or less how much of each topic will be covered on the Paper 1s and 2s. I recommend Revision Village (https://www.revisionvillage.com/) or Pestle (https://pestle-ib.firebaseapp.com/) as websites you can use to grind problems.
Doing lots of questions creates a sense of intuition in your brain. When you get presented with a math problem, your brain tries to spot patterns and try to relate them to any past questions you’ve done. The more problems you do, the more intuition you gain, and that allows you to do more problems! If you’re bold, try some of the HL questions they have on the website, they can get quite challenging! Don’t attempt questions that require advanced techniques exclusively from the HL course though, you’d waste your time with those.
If you cannot solve a question, it is important to go through its solution and read it carefully. Make sure to fully understand the motivation behind each step, as the answer does not appear magically without any rhyme or reason. Then, make sure to attempt the problem again, without looking at the solution. If you want, create your solutions to the problems you’ve done and see if it matches the official ones. Sometimes there could be a flaw in your thinking that’s holding you back!
Teach the content to your classmates
To make sure you understand the content, try explaining it to some of your classmates. This helps them understand the material better, but it also tests you if you truly understand what you’re talking about. Don’t feel discouraged to create study groups as well. Sometimes studying and doing homework can get kind of lonely (I’ve been there), so invite your friends to keep you company and help each other out.
KNOW HOW TO USE YOUR GRAPHING CALCULATOR
Don’t mess up like me and forget how to use the calculator to find the Pearson coefficient on a test. Make sure you are familiar with all the functions on the calculator, if you’re not sure, ask a teacher or watch a YouTube tutorial. You can also strategically use your calculator on calculator-based tests. Personally, I wouldn’t rely on my calculator for basic arithmetic calculations, but if you need to multiply 2-digits numbers, you can save lots of time by using your calculator instead of doing it by hand.
READ. And don’t make silly mistakes.
Make sure you fully follow the instructions given, which can be done by simplifying fractions, reducing radicals to the simplest form, rationalizing the denominator, and rounding to X decimal places. Not being able to follow the proper procedure can cost you lots of marks you shouldn’t be losing! Trying to avoid making these silly mistakes can be done in many ways, although for me personally, doing lots of problems beforehand reduced the number of mistakes I made on a test.
While completing a question MAKE SURE TO GO OVER YOUR ANSWERS TO SEE IF THEY MAKE SENSE. I’d advise using fractions in your calculations as much as you can, to avoid any sort of calculation errors.
Understand Command Terms
If it says state the answer, GIVE THE ANSWER ONLY. Go over some of the command terms used in IB examinations. This can save you lots of time in terms of how much you have to write on those papers.
More importantly, if a question asks you to prove something (or show that…), you cannot use the statement that you’re trying to prove in your solution. But do not fret, many students struggle with the notion of a mathematical proof, and admittedly it gets underemphasized in class.
Conclusion
Hopefully, with these tips, you can start to perform better in your IB Math Analysis and Approaches SL class, and feel more confident in your math abilities.
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