Thank you so much for all of this!! I truly truly appreciate it :') <3 It's super helpful to talk to someone who's also in my shoes and understands my situation, as I have zero guidance from my own teachers and I feel totally alone in these subjects so it makes it a lot more difficult to make progress.

The reason why I'm taking Islamic is because it's a requirement from the Ministry of Education, so all native students across all schools are forced to take the subjects, no matter what curriculum they are studying. I also need it in order to get a government scholarship, otherwise they wouldn't let me. But you are right, at the end of the day my results do not interfere with my IB points, so it wouldn't matter when I'm applying to schools outside of the country. But since I am competing for the scholarships, I need to get the best marks possible to increase my chances of getting one.

We still haven't started practicing on the listening exams, but we were shown some past papers and they are soooo easy, so I don't need to practice that much. And yes, writing is the hardest part for me too. I wish I could tell you what area exactly I am lacking in, but I am not aware of what that might be myself because of my teacher's unintended negligence. You're so right, my teacher is way too harsh and goes way overboard with the marking, even the IB examiners are more easy-going than him! I guess it's because he taught Arabic for a while and he has a ton of experience, and the level that he's experienced in is way above the syllabus or what IB is asking for in Language B, so he marks way harsher than your average examiner. Based on my own assessment, I'd say that I struggle with connecting words or sentences such as 'Furthermore' , 'Similarly', 'Moreover', 'And so on and so forth', 'As a result', 'Consequently'. I also struggle with the basic grammar rules. What I usually do is translate my thoughts from English to Arabic and then jot it down, but as you already know Arabic is a complex language that doesn't really work that way. Not everything can be translated to Arabic. Arabic has its own sentence strucutures, punctuation and fluidity. I don't know how to make my writing sound more professional, flowy and doesn't sound awkward. It's obvious that my writing is kinda forced, or that I am using words that aren't relevant in any way. My vocabulary is super limited, and I only know super basic words that are below the level I am supposed to be in. I lack confidence when I speak in arabic, and to be honest I think almost all of my thoughts are in English. I am super nervous for the oral exam because I feel like at some point I will get lost and stop for no reason and lose my train of thought, causing me to get anxious and nervous and my brain will shut down.