5 ways to Survive the IB Diploma Programme

Method 1 of 5: Deciding that this is really for you
If you haven't decided to take the IB yet, make sure you know what you are gettingll.

Method 2 of 5: Getting your mindset in order
Stay organised. This can't be stressed enough. You are juggling 6 or 7 subjects at a college (read: adult) level here, so for goodness' sake, keep your notes for each separate, organised and well written so that you can refer to them when it comes to exam time.

1. Make the most of your classes. Ask questions. Take well ordered notes. Follow up anything that you don't understand, as soon as possible.

Method 3 of 5: Staying committed

Pick subjects you are the most enthusiastic about. These are the subjects you are going to be studying intensively for two years. You're going to write essays, read about, do loads of research and homework on those subjects. Trust me, you don't want to do a Business Management IB course if you wanted to take Theatre Arts instead. You are more likely to be admitted into college with a 5 or 6 in Theatre Arts than a 2 or 3 in Business Management.

Learn the IB objectives for each subject. Because of the need to standardise the curriculum across different languages and cultures, they aren't going to test you on anything else. Ever. For example, in Biology, there's not much point learning the names of all the amino acids when you only have to be able to draw a generalised structure (unless you love biology, in which case, more power to you).

Learn the command terms for each subject. Not knowing command terms will lose you marks you could have gotten otherwise.

Do all your homework. Homework assignments constitute a high percentage of your final IB grade, and you could find yourself overwhelmed by the final exams if you're not diligent. This applies even further if you are doing HL (higher level) science or math.

Start your extended essay ASAP. Do it well, properly, and early. The sooner you do it, the sooner it's out of the way.

TOK. Otherwise known as Theory of Knowledge. Nail it. It's easy to get the core points for it if you work relatively hard. If your teacher won't teach you, teach yourself. There are books out there which are specifically designed for IB, so go get them.

Keep up to date with your CAS (Creativity, Action, Service). You need 50 hours of each, over a two year-period. Try and persuade your school to organise something to help you knock these hours out, for example, photography class, activity weekend, or tuition of younger kids. If all else fails, gardening in school can count as all three. Any help you do in school, get it signed off. Hand in those forms! You'll want to finish this as soon as possible, because by the end you'll need your energy to concentrate on your final exams.

Method 4 of 5: Survival techniques

Try not to freak out. You aren't going to fail, not if you work. Yes, you will get into university/college. Stop freaking out.

Remember, there is more to life than IB — lack of human contact due to IB can result in social isolation and depression. Relax and have some sort of social life, for the sake of your own sanity. Find a decent IB forum on the Internet. Talk to other IB students and programmes. That said, don't fall behind on your school work.

Give yourself a break once in a while. Do whatever it is you do to relax. Have some "you time". Just not all the time.

Avoid slacking off for any extended period. The IB is hard sometimes, but do it properly. There's no point wasting years of your life goofing off, when you could be making the most of what is, at the end of the day, a pretty awesome qualification.

Do not procrastinate. IB students are known for being the kings and queens of procrastination, do it once in a while but not so often that you don't have to write your Extended Essay overnight

Do the IB with friends, or make friends in the IB early on. In order to survive IB, you need a least a minimum of 3 friends to take it with you. You will not survive successfully all by yourself, as this also requires a guardian who is committed to help you succeed IB. The second you get in IB, forget your friends in regular coursework, as they will slow your thinking of succeeding. Your friends in IB will be the only mental help to you succeeding. You need to hang out with this particular group and study well with them, because you can all support each other. You also need to take every help you can get, ask every single question in your head if you have to.

Method 5 of 5: Examinations

Revise. These exams are definitely not a walk in the park. The IB is hard for most people (even geniuses like us) so prepare for it! And when — not if, when — you pass your exams, smile and be thankful that it's over. Help the first year students.

Get yourself a cheat sheet for your past exam questions and new exam. The questions in your textbook or those which you are set in class may be drastically easier than the actual exam if you don't do this.

• IB is the closest preparation to University. This is all due to the preparation of a post secondary education. Love Stress. Too much relaxation will result in a sluggish education, IB is the perfect opportunity to keep on edge for a better future. Suffer now, relax later.
• Sleep and nutrition. For IB, you need a minimum of 6 hours of sleep. Plan your study and assignments ahead of time.The latest you should sleep at is 11pm. You also need a minimum of 3 meals a day to survive the amount of information coming inside your head.

What most of people think about IB..

Did this happen to you or not?

What do you think about this?

You Know You're In IB When ... (241 examples)

You Know You're In IB When ...

1. You are already planning where your lockers will be next year. 
2. At least 4 of your classes (history, english, TOK, psychology) are talking about almost the same thing, or at least you think they are ... it could be an illusion ... maybe you're not in class at all ... 
3. You start walking in geometric circles. 
4. You start analyzing random books, song lyrics, and street signs.
5. You say the same sentence over and over again, not realizing you've said it before. 
6. A good night's sleep is 5 hours. 
7. You say the same sentence over and over again, not realizing you've said it before. 
8. You can't enjoy a heart-warming cartoon because the French grammar is wrong. 
9. You have made up complicated metaphors relating your love life to a card game and have fun doing it. 
10. 16 + 2 = ... wait, let me get my graphing calculator! 
11. The idea of "getting off on tangents" is hilariously funny.
12. You start overanalyzing the rainbows on people's clothing. 
13. You write a newsletter half in Latin. 
14. Your Physics teacher knows how to say "outstanding" in over 30 languages, yet chooses "cool beans!" 
15. You need a graphing calculator to bake. 
16. You're disappointed when you only get 100% on a test. 
17. You're smarter than all your teachers ... no, that just means you're in public school. 
18. You relax vicariously through your non-IB friends (what non-IB friends???). 
19. You forget to breathe. 
20. Your backpack is heavier than you are. 
21. You realize that something is missing when your backpack feels too light. 
22. You say the same sentence over and over again, not realizing you've said it before. 
23. You complain that you can't store notes on your graphing calculator for the IB English exam.
24. You write parodies of Faulkner's work for fun. 
25. You attempt to do your extended essay on Dr. Seuss. 
26. Your idea of a 3 AM party game is analyzing the socio-political commentary in Dr. Seuss. 
27. You complain about studying for your foreign language exam ... in multiple foreign languages.
28. You write stories and give them to other people to analyze for you because you don't understand them. 
29. You were a pair of antennae (deedleyboppers) on your head and think you're a water molecule. 
30. The fact that "wear" is spelled wrong in #29 bothers you. a lot.
31. You forget the meaning of the words "free time" yet remember the meaning of "literary analysis" (n. ) 
32. You have complicated dreams about graphing circles and ellipses. 
33. You take over the hallways in the morning before school, unloading your bookbag and settling in for a 30-minute homework party.
34. You walk in the movement patterns of a knight to improve your chess strategy while you nap on your way to your next class. 
35. You have theological discussions at parties 
36. You have theoretical physics discussions at parties. 
37. The number on your screen name corresponds to the page number that character you use for your screen name has an appearance in the book you got it from. 
38. Whenever you're watching a movie you find all the motifs and themes ... without trying.
39. "Friends" and "fellow IBers" are interchangeable. 
40. You go to bed at 3 AM and think, "Oh, it's an early night!" 
41. Your favorite saying is "If I get a hundred on every test for the rest of the year ..." 
42. Social life? What's that? 
43. You've fooled yourself into believing that colleges actually care whether you're in IB or not. 
44. You try to wake up fast enough to catch yourself sleeping - and succeed. 
45. You talk to yourself in the 3rd person. 
46. You write sentences on multiple choice tests. 
47. It's okay to fail, so long as you are not alone. 
48. You frequently catch yourself saying "What?? We had homework??" 
49. You say the same sentence over and over again, not realizing you've said it before. 
50.The Sun is too loud. 
51. Trees begin threatening you. 
52. You can see individual air molecules vibrating.
53. While writing a TOK paper, you begin to actually understand the material. 
54. You explore the possibility of setting up an IV drip of espresso. 
55. You wonder if brewing is an essential step in the consumption of coffee. 
56. Things become "Very Clear". 
57. You begin speaking in a language that only you and Channelers can understand. 
58. You believe that if you think hard enough, you can levitate. 
59. You heart beats in 7/8 time. 
60. You and Reality file for divorce. 
61. It appears that people are speaking to you in binary code. 
62. You have great revelations concerning Life, the Universe, and Everything else, but can't quite find the words for them before the white glow fades, leaving you more confused than before. Oh well, ice cream time!
63. You discover the aesthetic beauty of school supplies. 
64. You begin to talk to yourself, then disagree about the subject, get into a nasty row about it, lose, and refuse to talk to yourself for the rest of the day. 
65. You yell: "STOP TOUCHING ME!!!" even though you're the only person in the room. 
66. You manage to complete a semesters worth of homework the day before the term ends. 
67. You finish your extended essay shortly after midnight. Your smile of satisfaction fades when you remember to start on your World Lit paper. 
68. You've sold your soul … and have to wait 4 years to get it back.
69. You cloned yourself so you could sell your clones' souls to each of your teachers.
70. Desperate to fill up your CAS hours, you claim watching a black and white movie as "creativity" and walking your dog as "activity", and your teacher approves it. 
71. You have a special "test writing sweater" that you wore to all the IB exams. 
72. Your idea of impure thoughts is whether or not to copy math homework. 
73. You can count your first math quiz grade on one hand. 
74. You wonder if there's SparkNotes on the Calculus book. 
75. You don't really cheat - you just tell people the answers. 
76. Cheating became too difficult, so you took up telepathy. 
77. You have a tab running at Barnes & Noble. 
89. BN.com, amazon.com, and Books-A-Million offered to give you a free shipment/order each so you took full advantage of it and are now banned from those stores/sites (it took 6 semis to deliver the orders!) 
90. You understand that the list skipped from 77 to 89 for one sole reason: LACK OF SLEEP.
91. You've consulted tarot cards for hints on a History test. 
92. You have the library on speed dial. 
93. You've developed an imprint of your book bag in your back. 
94. Your best hope for most classes is either divine intervention or a strategically placed lightning bolt. 
95. Your books weigh more than you do. 
96. Your thesis for the Extended Essay is whether or not Bert and Ernie are gay. 
97. Your alternate thesis for the Extended Essay is why IB jokes/checklists are so prolific and the amount of fact contained within them. 
98. You plead insanity on a research paper. 
99. Your plea is accepted by your teacher. 
100. You do your essays on the plane ride to school. 
101. You can lead your way through a frog's intestines with your eyes closed. 
102. You have to stop twice and get gas to make it all the way to school. 
103. You've been out various times looking for the Abridged Cliff's Notes. 
104. You consider giving up going to the bathroom permanently to give you more time to study. 
105. Your backpack is only comfortable when it weighs >30 pounds. 
106. You have convinced your parents the "1" you received on your IB Chemistry exam was really the "top 1% of all IB students worldwide". 
107. You skip breakfast so you can get to school early to get in some extra cramming time to gain that "upper edge" on the rest of the class.
108. Your home becomes a "home away from home". 
109. You think the meaning of life is: G = -RTlnK.
110. Your favorite equation is e(iπ)+1=0 
111. Said equation comes up on a test. 
112. You go insane from trying to work Pythagoras' constant and the golden rule into said equation. 
113. You succeed in mathematically correctly adding above to said formula without changing number bases. 
114. Pressed for time, you conclude a history essay with, "And they lived happily every after. Amen." 
115. You get into a slugging match over priority for the library photocopier. 
116. It's essential to learn to live with occasional failures. 
117. Can we say EXTRA CREDIT?? 
118. You actually worry about the 105% you have in math. 
119. You find that you overreact when you get 2 points marked off on your homework. 
120. You find that you spend more time sleeping in class than at home.
121. You are 18 but can't drive. 
122. You have 15 library cards each under a different alias. 
123. You searched all the books in the local public library, so you found a loophole that allowed you to check out books from the local university stacks. 
124. Your list of excuses for not doing your homework is the length of Anna Karenina. 
125. You exceed the 4200 word limit on the Extended Essay (by over 1000 words). 
126. The simplest words you know are at least 10 letters long. 
127. You ask what your summer reading assignment will be in October.
127. You come into school at 6:00am to do Biology and don't complain.
128. You get dirty looks from the Regular Kids in your homeroom.
129. It takes more than one trip to carry the books you need between your car and your locker. 
130. You carry around SAT vocab flash cards to whip out in your free time. 
131. You can list all 5 definitions on vocabulary tests. 
132. When you are home sick, you can't help but wonder what work you're missing and what your homework is. 
133. When you're watching TV, you feel guilty because not all of your homework is done. 
134. That was a lie, you don't watch TV (except for NBC News at 6).
135. You show up 4 hours late to an IB test and still manage to get a "5". 
136. During a Chemistry test, instead of doing the work, you write a random answer program in your TI-83+ Silver Edition and get the highest score in the class. 
137. Your idea of great art is simultaneously graphing the sine, cosine and tangent graphs on your calculator. 
138. You have functioning electrical appliances in your locker. 
139. You can type 70 words per minute -- on a TI-89. 
140. You actually believe "mental health days" are excused absences. 
141. Brewing coffee takes too long, so you just eat the beans. 
142. You're afraid of sunlight since you haven't seen it in 3 years. 
143. Breakfast?! What's that? 
144. The bags under your eyes are heavier than the ones carrying your textbooks. 
145. You always seem to have one continuous headache. 
146. You haven't seen light in so long you glow in the dark. 
147. You find yourself thinking "Without stress my life would be empty." 
148. Your contacts are so thick that you have trouble closing your eyes. 
149. You can count the number of hours you sleep each week on one missing hand. 
150. You've taught yourself how to take naps while walking to your next class. 
151. You actually put the apostrophe in front of the word " 'cause. " 
152. You think MTV is a formula for mass, temperature and volume.
153. You clean up your room and find a bed. 
154. You wonder about things like what would happen if your car traveled at the speed of light and your turned your lights on. 
155. Everything you know about sex, you learned from the English reading list. 
156. You enjoy finding out the hard way why normal distribution should work. 
157. It's the little things that confuse you. 
158. You have the chemical formula and steps of synthesis for caffeine memorized. 
159. You still think Beavis and Butthead is a true-to-life TV show about "normal high school". 
160. You find all the "glitches" in movies. 
161. You use your ToK background to analyze Winnie the Pooh's Book of Quotations. 
162. When asked what significance Hitler had to Racial Social Darwinism, you say "Well, he didn't like Jews." 
163. You look foward to hell week because you think hell would be an improvement on your current situation. 
Free time? 
164. You've mastered the art of procrastination so well that your research paper finishes printing just seconds before you have to leave for school. 
165. You get to college and realize the classes you are taking seem really familiar. 
166. Your college professors' grading systems seem a little too lenient.
167. You dread the word rubric. 
168. You managed to write 4,000 words on the subject "Hitler was a nice guy, wasn't he?" (sarcasm not included) 
169. You've managed to get through an entire year of History of the Americas without reading one page of your test book.
170. You hold "parties" to study. 
171. You look forward to your parties. 
172. Your fellow IBers look forward to your parties, attend them, and do actual studying there. 
173. Your pick-up lines include compliments on the quality of her (his) epidermis and the wonderful shape of her (his) occipital plate. 
174. You forget your brother's name because you haven't seen him in three years. 
175. Wai t... what brother? 
176. When on vacation, you visit other schools. 
177. You have races with your friends to see who can say the entire periodic table of elements the fastest. 
178. You'd go into severe spasms if you ever lost your IB herd. 
179. You see your Extended Essay advisor more than you see your parents. 
180. You talk in your sleep -- in Spanish.
181. The only French you know is "J'aime manger le poission." 
182. You resort to communicating with classmates through a series of clicks because languages take too long. 
183. You love the "Macarena" not because it's a neat-o dance, but because you actually understand what those Spanish guys are saying.
184. You say the same sentence over and over again, not realizing you've said it before. 
185. You no longer speak English -- You speak a combination of English, German, Spanish, French, Portugese, Swedish, Dutch, Chinese, Russian, Norwegian, Hebrew, Arabic, Japanese, Korean, and Polish. 
186. Fellow IBers understand and use the same combined language. 
187. You convert it to 36-bit words converted to hexadecimal numbers to communicate as it is faster. 
188. You write a text-to-speech program that uses this hexadecimal linguistic conglomerate. 
189. You modify your text-to-speech program so that it also works as speech-to-text, and is eerily accurate. 
190. You know how to integrate a chicken and can take the derivative of water. 
191. You scoff at others’ lowly TI-83s while you caress your TI-93+ with pride. 
192. You debate about physics during lunch … and usually win. 
193. You know the chemical composition of the ugly brown stains on the ceiling tiles. 
194. Your calculators are an extension of your body. 
195. You feel guilty if you go more than a week without homework or some form of schooling. 
196. You're sad, because you can only take four HL tests. 
197. You hack the school’s network and duplicate your records so that you can take another three HLs, then merge the records together after you take your senior IB exams. 
198. You actually think you have a shot at passing the physics HL exam. 
199. You make a date to do homework together and you actually do. 
200. You derive formulas for fun. From first principles. 
201. You write your "What is Truth?" ToK paper entirely in Newspeak. 
202. You celebrate pi day (3/14), mole day (10/23), and pi approximation day (22/7 (d/m), as 22/7 is very close to pi).
203. You haven't studied for American History all year, and the week before semester finals you think "Why should I start now?" 
204. It rains and you place the umbrella over your bookbag instead of yourself. 
205. You know how to spell "Baccalaureate". 
206. You crash your calculator. 
207. You skip school to do homework. 
208. The word "ponder" induces hyperventilation. 
209. You're American and you write everything using British spelling. 
210. You focus you WHOLE LIFE around the Group 4 project. 
211. You accidently type "LOOL" instead of "LOL" in an IM conversation and explain it as "Laugh out ostentatiously loud". 
212. Someone tells you to relax and you go into spasms - "Relax? RELAX?!?" 
213. "It's a beautiful day outside to do that science experiment." 
214. You are so accustomed to being stressed, that when you aren't, you have a panic attack.
215. You sleep with your eyes half open because you don't have the energy to close them all the way.
216. You rush to the IB workroom immediately when 2nd block ends, type up your whole 500-word essay (that you wrote on paper by hand in 1st block), print it out, and make it to 3rd block before the next bell rings.
217. The cure to your depression is concentrating on homework.
218. You start working on your presentation for History of the Americas 3 minutes after you have already started presenting. 
219. You persuade your History teacher that everything you have said in that half hour of presenting makes sense and has a point, even though you don't know what that point is.
220. When people ask you if your community service is for a crime and you reply with, "no ... it's just school."
221. The school administrators stop everyone around you for being late, but you breeze right past.
222. You spend more time on college applications than on homework.
223. You keep your candidate number more secure than your social security number.
224. You begin to form verbs using book titles, and use them often in everyday conversation.
225. During the holiday break, instead of greeting you happily at the door, your family asks, "Who the hell are you?"
226. You're late for graduation because you are sneaking around to do chem labs.
227. Everything you notice everywhere seems to be ''ironic'' or ''symbolic'' of some deeper meaning or other. 
228. Your IB dropout friends from IB HL Math tell you that AP Calculus is a piece of cake, and you're jealous.
229. Your elective is an AP and you feel like your IQ is declining rapidly while sitting in that class.
230. You are intimately familiar with all the grading scales and manipulate them to exert the bare minimum effort.
231. You finish your homework before midnight, but find some excuse to stay up until 3 AM ... like compiling this list, just because it makes you laugh.
232. You can't watch a movie without organizing who knows what and how much time is passing.
233. Forget your favorite band. The only good sounds after 10 PM are from Xerox, HP, or Lexmark.
234. Every computer in your school has a strategically saved copy of some work you did. Furthermore, you know which computers they are and what you left there.
235. Your history teacher is the one who reminds you your break starts tomorrow.
236. You go to school on senior skip day worrying about getting behind, and turns out, all your classmates are there too.
237. You freak out about class-specific or music-related school trips because of all the class and work you will be missing. Four months in advance.
238. You stay in class until the very last minute to make it onto the bus that you're taking with the soccer team to an away game, even though players were asked to leave class 30 mins early to get ready.
239. You spend more time trying to decide when you'll do your homework than actually doing it.
240. You get nervous when you have free time.
241. You spend more hours getting your CAS forms signed than the number of hours on written those forms, because you wait until the last minute to fill out the forms. Naturally; it would be a waste of time otherwise.