A very not-comprehensive article on studying IB Physics Higher Level.
IB Physics Higher Level, as you should know by now, is not an easy course. Physics, unlike pseudoscience like chemistry and biology (disclaimer: this is a very personal opinion with a sprinkle of sarcasm. This does not reflect the whole perspective of Eyebee Prep. lol thank you writer. - Kind Regards, Jiwoo) , require both theory and application, meaning you can’t just memorize and expect to get a 7. Personally, in my experience, this is why IB Physics is a much more challenging course compared to courses like Business and Biology, where memorization is king. In fact, the IB discourages memorization to the extent of graciously providing us with a formula booklet during the exam. However, you’ll often find that it won’t be very useful with the exception of a few constants. Therefore, you need a deep, holistic understanding of all the subjects to answer said questions. In this article, I will go over how to reach this sort of “conceptual understanding” within these topics and subsequently score a high score on the final exam.
Listen in class if you have a competent teacher. If not, watch YouTube videos. Physics HL is a course where the quality of the teacher matters a lot. Due to the innate difficulty of the course and its requirement of students to have an in-depth understanding of its topics, teachers play a large role in how difficult students perceive the course. A good teacher can explain complex topics to students, allowing them to understand the causes behind them while a bad teacher can only read from the textbook, not catering to individual’s students needs. Additionally, it is important to note that most Physics HL teachers majored in Physics, not teaching, meaning they might have the capacity to do said questions but cannot explain them to students. Therefore, it’s important to listen in class as this is where you’ll be doing most of the understanding. If they’re not so good, you can try to substitute them with YouTube videos such as those by KhanAcademy and other educational channels. Obviously, they won’t be as helpful as a competent teacher since they can’t answer your specific questions.
Don’t panic if your grades start tanking. My school transitions from IGCSE into IB. Although for subjects like Business the change is almost non-existent, Physics changed from a memorization course to an application course. Hence, the grades of many of my class for the first few Physics exams were quite low, averaging around 4 and 5s. Depending on your ability to do Physics and the previous curriculum you took, it might be common to see a drop in grades for the first few subject tests. Don’t worry, though, once you adapt to the course they’ll spike back up. Most importantly, don’t use these low grades as an excuse to change course or drop to Physics SL. The importance of Physics HL in comparison to Physics SL on your university transcript outweighs the difficulty of the respective courses. Unless you really believe that the course is too difficult for you or you don’t need it for your university application, there should be no reason for you to drop.
Physics HL is a hard course. But, in this article, I have tried to make it easier. I hope you’ve learned something from this and your experience with the course is a bit less grueling than mine.
IB Physics Higher Level, as you should know by now, is not an easy course. Physics, unlike pseudoscience like chemistry and biology (disclaimer: this is a very personal opinion with a sprinkle of sarcasm. This does not reflect the whole perspective of Eyebee Prep. lol thank you writer. - Kind Regards, Jiwoo) , require both theory and application, meaning you can’t just memorize and expect to get a 7. Personally, in my experience, this is why IB Physics is a much more challenging course compared to courses like Business and Biology, where memorization is king. In fact, the IB discourages memorization to the extent of graciously providing us with a formula booklet during the exam. However, you’ll often find that it won’t be very useful with the exception of a few constants. Therefore, you need a deep, holistic understanding of all the subjects to answer said questions. In this article, I will go over how to reach this sort of “conceptual understanding” within these topics and subsequently score a high score on the final exam.
Listen in class if you have a competent teacher. If not, watch YouTube videos. Physics HL is a course where the quality of the teacher matters a lot. Due to the innate difficulty of the course and its requirement of students to have an in-depth understanding of its topics, teachers play a large role in how difficult students perceive the course. A good teacher can explain complex topics to students, allowing them to understand the causes behind them while a bad teacher can only read from the textbook, not catering to individual’s students needs. Additionally, it is important to note that most Physics HL teachers majored in Physics, not teaching, meaning they might have the capacity to do said questions but cannot explain them to students. Therefore, it’s important to listen in class as this is where you’ll be doing most of the understanding. If they’re not so good, you can try to substitute them with YouTube videos such as those by KhanAcademy and other educational channels. Obviously, they won’t be as helpful as a competent teacher since they can’t answer your specific questions.
Don’t panic if your grades start tanking. My school transitions from IGCSE into IB. Although for subjects like Business the change is almost non-existent, Physics changed from a memorization course to an application course. Hence, the grades of many of my class for the first few Physics exams were quite low, averaging around 4 and 5s. Depending on your ability to do Physics and the previous curriculum you took, it might be common to see a drop in grades for the first few subject tests. Don’t worry, though, once you adapt to the course they’ll spike back up. Most importantly, don’t use these low grades as an excuse to change course or drop to Physics SL. The importance of Physics HL in comparison to Physics SL on your university transcript outweighs the difficulty of the respective courses. Unless you really believe that the course is too difficult for you or you don’t need it for your university application, there should be no reason for you to drop.
Physics HL is a hard course. But, in this article, I have tried to make it easier. I hope you’ve learned something from this and your experience with the course is a bit less grueling than mine.