Pacing when doing past papers and tips for grades 3/4 students

Pacing. The key difference between a 6 and a 7. Somewhat important to other grades as well though not as much as the 6/7 borderline.

You've heard a lot of people telling you different things about pacing, i.e., how fast you should answer a question on the exam, with the most popular advice is "spending a mark a minute". 

I'm not entirely convinced that's the best strategy.

Grades 6/7 borderline

If you're shooting for a 6 or 7, you're more likely to breeze through the first couple questions of each section. A 4-marker may take you a minute to do because you're well-prepared for anything at the lower end. This does not mean you should rush to finish the easy questions, because a mark you dropped here has to be made up with a mark from a question further down the line, but you'll find yourself having a lot of spare time after breezing through more than half of the paper. 

The harder questions at the end of each section (AA) or paper (AI): you're very likely to need more than a minute a mark to answer them. Case in point: the hardest section A question on an AA paper is worth around 6-7 marks, but you'll need WAY more time because you may not know how to even start the question, let alone solving it.

I would recommend using the first five minutes to flip through the question paper and think how you would tackle the easy questions so you don't waste your precious time on easier questions. Then do the questions in order - sometimes you'll find later questions easier than the one you've skipped, so you have a motivation boost for yourself down the line. :D

That being said, check your answer after every single question to make sure you don't make a stupid error. Most of you, and I'm guilty of this, never checks your solutions in the last 5-10 minutes of the exam because we're too busy tackling the bloody challenging grade 7 stuff.

Grades 3/4 borderline

For y'all, it's not as important as the grades 6/7 kids because you don't need to do the entire paper to secure a 4. That being said, you should stick to "a mark a minute" because it helps you avoid answering the questions too slowly and unable to get enough marks to secure a 4. We never know if you can actually get a 5. c:

Securing a solid 4

You should aim for a 4 or higher in each subject, SL or HL, to reduce the risk of not getting the diploma. The bonus points should be used as a backup should you underperform in any subject.

I'm not saying a 4 is easy to get, especially at HL, but there are some questions/topics that show up over and over and over again. You name it, binomial theorem, factor theorem (HL), sine/cosine rules, Venn diagrams (SL). If you get half of the paper done flawlessly, you have a very very good shot at getting a 4 because the cutoff is usually in the 45-ish marks at SL and 40-ish at HL. I won't list the topics that I predict would show up on AASL/HL papers (that's for another day), but I have one (1) revision tip for y'all to get a good pass.

Instead of focusing one topic a day for 10 days, do all 10 topics in 10 days when you're practising.

When you're learning the new content, it makes perfect sense to learn the topic on its own then attempt some questions to make sure you actually know the content. This of course isn't sufficient to ensure that you won't forget it over time, but all the stuff we'll do will not work if you don't know your shit.

When you're practising, it's better to spread each topic over several days because it forces your brain to reset when you encounter a new question. 

Let's say you have 5 topics you want to revise before the next big test,

- trigonometric relationships

- trigonometric functions

- trigonometric identities

- complex numbers

- complex roots

It's better to do two questions for each topic for 5 days than all 10 questions for a single topic everyday because you have to pause and think, "what do I have to do here?" This is called "interleaved practice", which is proven to be more effective (you're more likely to remember this stuff) than when you're doing blocked practice (everything in one go).

Andrew's personal tip

This is hard and potentially demoralising at first. Maybe after 2 or 3 days you still couldn't remember the one fact that you've been struggling for a while, e.g. number of equivalents in organic chemistry reactions. Use your notes for the first few days. Write down the answer and try to recall it from memory next time. It's totally fine if you can't recall the facts now; the mere act of attempting to recall the fact is already beneficial. This is part of "The New Theory of Disuse" by Bjork. I highly recommend checking it out.

And after a few days you realise you've gotten it! It took me several days of practice to wrap my head around the number of equivalents of bases in carbonyl chemistry reactions (stuff with ketones, aldehydes, Claisen condensation, etc), but in the end I can kinda write it down from the top of my head. I probably won't be able to do that later down the line because I don't need to care about the course anymore (phew!) but it's proven to be effective, at least for me anyways.

Caveat:  you have to get to the stage that you can answer the questions without referring to the notes. Otherwise I don't think you'll be able to pull it off.

Why do we need this?

Many grades 3/4 students have problems with the basics.

- Should I differentiate or integrate?

- Should I use the sine rule or the cosine rule?

- Should I use substitution or inspection? (they're the same thing. ;p)

If you know each topic well and you do what I said earlier, you wouldn't have much trouble with each of the three questions.

Conclusion

Two more months before the exams for N21, woo! I know you're stressed out no matter you're in exam route or NER. I'll be here with you at every step of your journey.

You can see me in https://discord.com/invite/ibo or https://discord.com/invite/SHBFEAf39Y.

The former is the IB server where I'm a maths helper and the latter is my mock server.

Exclusive: MOCKS. 

They should be ready to go in four weeks, so the weekend of September 25. Dates are subject to change, of course.

I'll also write up a post containing all the mock papers I've hosted on this website to make it easier for y'all to navigate.

Have fun with revision!

Andrew