The Top Tips for Physics SL HL

Baccalaureate Physics Preparation Online Courses

Back in 2004, I began teaching Physics. I had obtained an honours degree in Astrophysics before then and had qualified as an Actuary. I was a self-professed nerd (and still am!)!

When I began to teach BUT, I was very sure about my subject knowledge, even though I found the principles in IB Physics pretty tricky to begin with.

I'm going to tell you why....

You should depend on a certain amount of memory to get you through most other courses (e.g. A level or GCSE). For eg, you would get a good mark in the course if you memorised the key concepts, the formulas and studied some of the routine problems (e.g. retention of momentum).

IB Physics is somewhat different, though.

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The problem-solving abilities that are introduced to you in the IB exams require two years of studying to develop. That's why, in the first year of IB, prior papers still sound unlikely when you try them. You have clearly not yet mastered the skills for problem-solving. The principles themselves are not too complicated, but it actually takes more time to transpose such concepts into exam-style questions.

Top Tip 1: Practice as many topics in the course as you can. Physics is essentially a topic for problem-solving. You can't simply study physics, you need to improve the ability and it takes two years to achieve so.

In IB Physics HL, the Toughest Subject

Over the years, practically thousands of IB students have emailed me. I know the trickier aspects of the course are what I expect, so I figured it would be fun to figure out what STUDENTS THINK are the challenging parts of the course. So I polled all of those students and I got about 200 answers!

One question that I was wondering was,

IN TERMS OF Complexity, Score EACH Subject

I received 200 responses and the general description was:

Topic 2 (Mechanics) is normally regarded as very complicated.

Topic 6 (Circular Motion and Gravitation) is more complicated for a lot of people, which is a disappointment to me.

There are relatively few issues with topic 3 (Thermal Physics).

Top Tip 2: In general, Topic 1 (Measurements and Uncertainties) is seen as simple or OK. Be careful - its features are substantially included in Paper 3 of the exam and can account for about 5-7% of your final IB Physics mark!!!

Sadly, over the IB Physics course, my questionnaires identified plenty of concerns with having adequate help from instructors. This is not because teachers at IB Physics are not good enough - far from it! Many days, it's very clearly the teachers are completely stretched and they are also incredibly busy teaching a course about which they are often new. In this hard course, students feel that they need more support and their teachers are unable to satisfy this desire.

From both sides, I completely get this.

I was responsible for the implementation of three separate curricula when I was Head of Science, four full-time professors, a boarding school, the lacrosse team... And my HL Class at IB. Seeking time and energy to give them more help was soooo tricky.

I have recently learned that IB Student online resources can be almost as successful and I have set up a Facebook community for Every IB Physics student. Most days, I'm on it and I want to help in every way I can.

Hope this begins to resolve the "How hard is IB Physics HL?" issue. ”!

Good Luck!