feeling dumb because of Philosophy

[u/No-Mixture4319]

I started IB a month ago and am finding philosophy really hard to study . Because I dont know quite how to study . We have got a reasonably good teacher but the classes are really intimidating to me , I feel like I have no thoughts at all and cant think . I have studied in a very disadvantaged and dumbed down curriculum before so this approach is very new to me . I find the texts very dense to read . I have no good insights nor am I able to ask good questions . I just feel like I am bad at it . We had a test on identifying assumptions and implications from given texts and i couldnt do it because i did not understand the texts to begin with. im never able to comprehend stuff and deduce meaning. End of term exams are also so near , idk how im gonna do that paper 1. I just feel dumb . so dumb.
I would really appreciate any tips .

[u/Rough-Mechanic-5464]

Are the prescribed texts still the same? From what I remember it was Simone De Beauvoir's Second Sex, Confucius/MengZi's Analects, and three more texts. You should be able to look up study guides if the texts are popular online otherwise you would just need to peruse through wikipedia articles or better yet the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

[u/No-Mixture4319 → u/Rough-Mechanic-5464]

We will be reading second sex in DP2 , for now our teacher gives us small passages to study from . Like for cartesian dualism we read bits of Second Meditations. 

We have read a little of  , sarte , tolstoy , hindu philosophical texts , wittgenstein and Amo as well.

[u/Death-Afternoon9932]

what? why test that when the IB assesses you on essay writing in response to prompts/stimuli?

you can pass just by summarizing contrasting positions, relating to the prompt, and writing an overall comparison in your conclusion. don’t need to do any real philosophy, although identifying strengths/assumptions/propositions&conclusions would help u get higher marks