Prepare Your Body and Your Mind for the Exams

April 18, 2018

This will probably be my last blog before you dive into the exams in May. I hope your revision has gone well: there’s still time to go over more past papers to become as familiar as possible with the way the examiners ask questions. And don’t forget that,...

SN1 vs SN2

April 16, 2018

I have not long been back from Oxford in the UK where I was running a revision course for OSC. One of the concepts that the students seemed needing clarifying was when to decide when an organic reaction was SN1 or SN2 so I thought it may be worth sharing this with you...

Don’t Lose Marks Unnecessarily in Your Maths Exams

April 11, 2018

There is statistical evidence that 1 in 7 of you will lose marks which you shouldn’t lose: in other words, there could be marks which you could easily gain, even if you can’t answer a question, but what you put on paper didn’t match the...

Understanding Keywords in Mathematics Exams

March 23, 2018

Whether you are approaching your final exams, or you’re at the stage of mid-course exams, you’re probably beginning to put in some practice of past paper questions. Sometimes it isn’t the maths which is hard, but understanding the language of the...

Coming to Terms with Greek Terms (2)

March 2, 2018

In this pair we are dealing with one term that you may encounter but are less likely to actually use in your own critical writing, and another that you might actually find usable.  Either way, your knowledge of these ‘terms of art’ can work to expand your...

Coming to Terms with Some Greek Terms (1)

February 12, 2018

Currently, there are some critical terms that many IB students are using in their essays. These terms are often used when writing about narratives such as novels and short stories, though they also occur in drama. Still, some of you might not be using these – although...