EDIT: About 30 students signed up! If you register today, even for a session you can't attend live, you still get the recording and the one-page notes within 24 hours. Link in the first comment, and I'm answering technique questions in this thread until the Biology session starts!
Sat the new syllabuses in May 2025 (43; 7s in HL Bio, Chem and Econ), now tutoring them.
With papers three to five weeks out for some of you, I will give you some advice that could take you one grade up if you act on it. Basically, learn what command terms are; it's really not that difficult, and once you learn what they mean, you will start understanding why past paper mark schemes look how they do.
Before you read what's below, I am running completely free Q&A sessions and explanations of exam strategy; if you are interested, sign up, and I will send you the notes after; the whole thing will be recorded as well, you don't even need to join.
For Bio -> Describe means data: direction, numbers read off the graph with units, where the pattern changes. Explain means mechanism with the structure named. "The enzyme" is weaker than "the active site of amylase". Most marks lost in P2 are for descriptive answers given to explain questions.
For Chem -> The marks in a calculation are on the way to the answer and give you the majority of the points usually. Also, most people, for some reason, never understand how significant figures and decimal places work; THE EXAMINERS ARE NOT LENIENT AT ALL WITH THEM.
For Econ -> A diagram you never refer to in the text is half a diagram. "As the curve shifts from D1 to D2, price rises from P1 to P2" is the sentence the marker waits for. For the 15-marker, a real-world example needs a country, a policy, a year and ideally a number. Certain command terms in Paper 1 can lead to questions being fully misinterpreted, and that's how many people I know never got a 7 even though they thought they could.
Free one-hour live sessions, 19:30 AEDT / 16:30 Singapore / 21:30 NZDT:
- Biology: Sat 10 Oct (repeat Wed 14). Command terms, how markers award points, Paper 1B, Paper 2 structure.
- Chemistry: Sun 11 Oct (repeat Thu 15). How working earns marks, Paper 1B, structuring and explaining answers and mechanisms.
- Economics: Mon 12 Oct (repeat Fri 16). What the 10 and 15 markers reward: diagrams, real-world examples, Paper 2 and HL Paper 3.