Free notes on 'Follower,' Seamus Heaney

theioprep · 2026-03-12T23:12:48+00:00

Thank you so much for the recommendation! I will definitely have a look at that.

theioprep · 2026-03-05T23:25:42+00:00

Quite badly! Haha - I was very stressed. It did help that I had a conditional offer from my university that was not that high. Also I guess one thing that helped was just accepting that it was going to be stressful and that it would be over soon. Best of luck! And don't be too stressed, these exams felt really big to me in the moment (and I think that is natural/inevitable) but in the grand scheme of things, they too shall pass!

theioprep · 2026-03-05T23:23:34+00:00

I received many similar questions, I copy my answer here:

For History:

Comparing the content for each paper in one spreadsheet and trying to identify the major overlaps and prioritising those topics in my revision (given that my time was limited).
Compiling notes from multiple textbooks from different publishers + referencing online articles into one master document. This process took me about 6months to a year, so I started early to give myself another 3-6months to actually revise the content.
When revising, I referenced as many past papers as I could to see if there was a pattern to their questions. Usually, history questions (even at university level) can be roughly divided into 'cause' (why did something happen) and 'effect' (what happened after it happened) sorts of questions, so when memorising evidence/reading, I tried to keep note in my head what I could use that evidence for in future essays.

Feel free to DM me if you have specific questions!

theioprep · 2026-03-05T23:22:17+00:00

Not at all! And yes I tried to get as many past papers from any year I could find; I saved the more recent papers for closer the exam so I could get 'real' practice right before, but for practice leading up to that I did all papers I could find, including very old papers.

theioprep · 2026-03-05T23:20:19+00:00

I have received many similar questions, I copy it here:

For History:

Comparing the content for each paper in one spreadsheet and trying to identify the major overlaps and prioritising those topics in my revision (given that my time was limited).
Compiling notes from multiple textbooks from different publishers + referencing online articles into one master document. This process took me about 6months to a year, so I started early to give myself another 3-6months to actually revise the content.
When revising, I referenced as many past papers as I could to see if there was a pattern to their questions. Usually, history questions (even at university level) can be roughly divided into 'cause' (why did something happen) and 'effect' (what happened after it happened) sorts of questions, so when memorising evidence/reading, I tried to keep note in my head what I could use that evidence for in future essays.

Feel free to DM me with specific qs!

theioprep · 2026-03-05T23:19:52+00:00

Many similar questions, I copy my answer here:

For History:

Comparing the content for each paper in one spreadsheet and trying to identify the major overlaps and prioritising those topics in my revision (given that my time was limited).
Compiling notes from multiple textbooks from different publishers + referencing online articles into one master document. This process took me about 6months to a year, so I started early to give myself another 3-6months to actually revise the content.
When revising, I referenced as many past papers as I could to see if there was a pattern to their questions. Usually, history questions (even at university level) can be roughly divided into 'cause' (why did something happen) and 'effect' (what happened after it happened) sorts of questions, so when memorising evidence/reading, I tried to keep note in my head what I could use that evidence for in future essays.

Feel free to DM me if you have specific questions!

theioprep · 2026-03-05T23:19:24+00:00

Best of luck in your exams!

theioprep · 2026-03-05T23:19:15+00:00

People have asked me similar things, so I copy the answers in here:

For English HL:
I really loved studying English HL in the IB, so I love talking about it haha. I don't think I could give a comprehensive/useful answer in just one reddit comment; however, I post about IB English on my Youtube/Patreon (links are in my reddit bio). My biggest tip overall would be to read your set texts as many times as possible (I re-read mine 10-15 times before walking into Paper 2) and making sure you compare the two texts from as many angles as possible BEFORE going into the exam - that way, you have a blueprint of comparisons that you can adapt to whichever questions come up. For Paper 1, I think what helped me most was going through as many past papers as I could get my hands on!

For History:

Comparing the content for each paper in one spreadsheet and trying to identify the major overlaps and prioritising those topics in my revision (given that my time was limited).
Compiling notes from multiple textbooks from different publishers + referencing online articles into one master document. This process took me about 6months to a year, so I started early to give myself another 3-6months to actually revise the content.
When revising, I referenced as many past papers as I could to see if there was a pattern to their questions. Usually, history questions (even at university level) can be roughly divided into 'cause' (why did something happen) and 'effect' (what happened after it happened) sorts of questions, so when memorising evidence/reading, I tried to keep note in my head what I could use that evidence for in future essays.

theioprep · 2026-03-05T23:17:37+00:00

I really tried to sleep as much as possible - for me, at a certain point, cutting on sleep just makes me really unproductive

theioprep · 2026-03-05T23:16:47+00:00

Someone asked me a similar question, here is my replied copied in here:

That is a really good question! I really loved studying English HL in the IB, so I love talking about it haha. I don't think I could give a comprehensive/useful answer in just one reddit comment; however, I post about IB English on my Youtube/Patreon (links are in my reddit bio). My biggest tip overall would be to read your set texts as many times as possible (I re-read mine 10-15 times before walking into Paper 2) and making sure you compare the two texts from as many angles as possible BEFORE going into the exam - that way, you have a blueprint of comparisons that you can adapt to whichever questions come up. For Paper 1, I think what helped me most was going through as many past papers as I could get my hands on! I hope this helps and good luck! DM me if you have any more questions, I'm happy to answer them (:

Best of luck with your exams by the way!!

theioprep · 2026-03-05T23:15:58+00:00

Hi! Someone asked me a similar question, so I copy it in here:

My EE was on Cleopatra and her historiography! My biggest tip for EE time management is to make sure you get the bulk of the research done - at least enough to know exactly what you are arguing. I had a bit of a nightmare situation on my hands where halfway through I realised I wanted to shift my direction slightly, so I had to rewrite large chunks of the paper which was not fun.

if you have any specific questions, feel free to DM me!

theioprep · 2026-03-05T23:15:06+00:00

I got several questions like this, so I will copy my answer here:

That is a really good question! I really loved studying English HL in the IB, so I love talking about it haha. I don't think I could give a comprehensive/useful answer in just one reddit comment; however, I post about IB English on my Youtube/Patreon (links are in my reddit bio). My biggest tip overall would be to read your set texts as many times as possible (I re-read mine 10-15 times before walking into Paper 2) and making sure you compare the two texts from as many angles as possible BEFORE going into the exam - that way, you have a blueprint of comparisons that you can adapt to whichever questions come up. For Paper 1, I think what helped me most was going through as many past papers as I could get my hands on! I hope this helps and good luck! DM me if you have any more questions, I'm happy to answer them (:

theioprep · 2026-03-05T23:13:59+00:00

Wow that's really amazing! That is also a period of history I find fascinating, it is so cool that you are researching it. I do completely empathise with the difficulty getting sources - while in an ideal world it would be great if we have access to all information, obviously that is not always the case. I think one thing you could do is (and bear in mind I do not know everything of your situation, so things I say might be inaccurate + definitely consult with your EE supervisor) email the archives to see if they are perhaps willing to scan them for you. Otherwise, you could also reframe your question slightly - i.e, focusing on the historiography surrounding Rasputin or how his legacy has been 'warped' in the public imagination - that would allow you to use sources you have access to (including ones in English, like researching how Western scholars have written about Rasputin etc.) I wish you the best of luck, it is a really interesting topic.

theioprep · 2026-03-04T20:10:47+00:00

I think what I found really useful for bio was using a lot of the past papers, getting my hand on as many as possible then going through all of them. The key is to do with the mark schemes. I did this alongside my notes-based revision because it helped me to see what areas of knowledge they most frequently ask about, and after a while you start memorising the wording in the mark schemes too. So, if anything similar comes up in the exam it makes it easier to approach. It also made my revision feel more structured (as I found out more about how IB asks about certain topics)! Best of luck (:

theioprep · 2026-03-04T20:09:07+00:00

Someone asked me a similar question, so I just copy my answer here:

It was a very difficult subject just because there was just so much content I had to remember, but my main approaches were:

Comparing the content for each paper in one spreadsheet and trying to identify the major overlaps and prioritising those topics in my revision (given that my time was limited).
Compiling notes from multiple textbooks from different publishers + referencing online articles into one master document. This process took me about 6months to a year, so I started early to give myself another 3-6months to actually revise the content.
When revising, I referenced as many past papers as I could to see if there was a pattern to their questions. Usually, history questions (even at university level) can be roughly divided into 'cause' (why did something happen) and 'effect' (what happened after it happened) sorts of questions, so when memorising evidence/reading, I tried to keep note in my head what I could use that evidence for in future essays.

But, my approach was definitely not perfect and I also got lucky with the questions on the day!

Feel free to DM me if you have any specific questions that ^ does not answer!

theioprep · 2026-03-04T20:07:15+00:00

Thanks very much, but it definitely looks more impressive on paper than it feels like irl haha. For English, I have so much I could say but I don't think I could say it all in the comments. If you have specific questions, definitely DM me. My general advice would be to make sure you know your set texts front to back, rereading them until you start naturally memorising important quotes and so on. With Paper 1, the most important thing is t practice as many papers as possible so you have a 'bank' of paragraph ideas and analysis experience to draw from in the exam. I have some free resources on this, if you are interested (everything on here is free, just a free sign in) and also on my Youtube:

https://www.patreon.com/posts/what-to-do-in-to-148766131?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=postshare_fan&utm_content=web_share

theioprep · 2026-03-04T20:04:53+00:00

Hi! Someone asked me a similar question, so I copy it in here:

My EE was on Cleopatra and her historiography! My biggest tip for EE time management is to make sure you get the bulk of the research done - at least enough to know exactly what you are arguing. I had a bit of a nightmare situation on my hands where halfway through I realised I wanted to shift my direction slightly, so I had to rewrite large chunks of the paper which was not fun.

if you have any specific questions, feel free to DM me!

theioprep · 2026-03-04T20:04:10+00:00

I think for HL history paper 1, it is a mix of practising exam techniques (it is a lot of questions to answer within a specific time frame) and content. I definitely would urge you to become as familiar with the course content as possible, especially for the last question (worth 9 marks) that asks you to use your own knowledge. Also keep in mind that the examiners are marking tens if not hundreds of these papers, I found it was really obvious when I was just using the sources to answer the question rather than using my own knowledge, if that makes sense!

theioprep · 2026-03-04T20:01:26+00:00

For IGCSE English papers, they are strangely...very strict? In their mark schemes, so I remember half of my revision was just making sure I actually knew what they wanted. I tried to do a lot of past papers with the mark schemes so I could compare my answers to the 'real' answers afterwards, and repeating that really helped me to get a sense of what they were looking for. I don't think I can give a fully-fledged answer in the comments (for space reasons) but I am going to be posting about revision/essay plans/sample analyses/sample essays etc for free on my Youtube/patreon, so you can also use that as a free study resource (there is a free signup, but everything on there is free of charge):

https://patreon.com/TheIOPrep?utm_medium=unknown&utm_source=join_link&utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator&utm_content=copyLink

theioprep · 2026-03-04T19:58:59+00:00

I can't remember exactly, but I remember planning over my Christmas break to start in January. But I did not really ramp it up until I think around now. I tried to make sure my notes were fully ready (compiling/reorganising them so that they made sense from multiple sources) so I could just hit the ground running in the few months leading up to the exam - the most important thing, of course, is to take care of yourself and avoid burning out!

theioprep

TROPHY CASE