All the IB Links you need to know

Across the internet, there are thousands of different resources, materials, and tutors at your disposal. But, as I'm sure many IB students come to realise, it's pretty hard to find links that are actually useful. Instead, there are offers for paid tutors, courses and books which cost quite a bit. In this article, though,  here are all the links you need for getting all the help you need in perfecting your IB scores. This includes hundreds of handwritten notes from full-scoring students, links to WhatsApp groups to ask your fellow peers how to do different questions, and some of the best online IB teachers in their field. Now, the IB world is your oyster! :)

If you haven't enrolled in an IB school (especially in Finland), here are the most important links to get you started:

If you haven't joined the IB, fret not: here you can find the links to Finnish schools which offer the IB programme. Browse through all the different locations that IB schools are available in Finland using this link:
https://www.ibo.org/programmes/find-an-ib-school/?SearchFields.Country=FI

If you want to find your school in any country of the world, this link (https://www.ibo.org/about-the-ib/the-ib-by-country/) connects you with all the names, locations and programs offered in your country.

If you want to enroll strictly in Finland though, I'd recommend you look at the next links. Below, I've included links to the schools offering the IB programme in the area of Uusimaa (including the cities of Helsinki, Espoo and Vantaa), below I have compiled some of the links to the different IB school websites so you can easily familiarise yourself with what to expect from each school and, like me, decide which ones you want to place in which order when doing your application to IB schools.

Finnish IB schools within Uusimaa:
Ressun Lukio: https://www.hel.fi/ressulib/en
Helsingin Suomalainen Yhteiskoulu (SYK): https://www.syk.fi/ib/ib-at-syk
Etelä-Tapiolan Lukio: http://www.etela-tapiola.fi/espoo-international2015/
Mattlidens IB World: https://www.mattliden.fi/ib/about-ib/ib-programme-at-mattlidens
Tikkurilan Lukio: https://sivistysvantaa.fi/tikkurilaib/index.html
International School of Helsinki: https://www.ishelsinki.fi/ [this is a private school, costing tens of thousands to attend each year]

If you have enrolled in the IB, here are the most important links you'll need to get started - officially certified documents from the IB themselves:

If you ever need the information about the IB directly from its source, the official IBO website is the place to go: https://www.ibo.org/
With a bit of time and digging, you can find all necessary information you can find all the necessary information to get you started with what different courses entail and basically all the basics you could ever need to understand what the IB is about.

However, once you've gotten acquainted with this website, I would like to introduce you to what I feel is one of the most important 'officially certified' resources the IB provides: exemplar. These examples, along with all other types of teaching material, are provided through websites known as "IB Teacher Support Material" websites: 
https://www.reddit.com/r/IBO/comments/6s95hy/resources_ib_teacher_support_material_tsm/

These websites have been made by the IB for the teachers that teach all sorts of subjects. And to that end, there are hundreds of these support material websites for all of your subjects. This link are your holy grail for understanding exactly what goes wrong in students' essays, why they score poorly or amazingly, and how you yourself can improve in any subject!

This support material includes
- the assessment criteria used by teachers to teach these subjects
- assessed in-class work, IAs and EEs

Next up: free books, free notes and free IB support!

Free books:
Sometimes, tuition and access to all the books the IB might ask of you are sometimes a bit out of price range. That's alright, since these links have you covered. You can find nearly any book the IB asks of you under the sun, and this can definitely save you money: it's saved me at least a couple hundred of Euros! I found nearly all my books for HL History, SL ESS and Maths there, and my other friends have found their science books using these links as well.

Not only that, this specific link is the lifeline for most IB students: it contains a plethora of EE exemplar, previous exam papers (including answers!), as well as the books mentioned above.
https://ibresources.github.io/

Free notes:
Not only that, but you can even find notes written by IB students themselves! See, when people graduate and get top scores, students are always asking what exactly it was they did to score so highly. Luckily, these gracious strangers have uploaded all the notes they personally used for studying for their subject exams online, right on Reddit!
https://www.reddit.com/r/ibresources/comments/7q56to/notes_for_all_ib_subjects/

Free tests:
Recently, I found an amazing, straightforward directory of hundreds of past final exam papers for every subject you can think of:
https://freeexampapers.com/
Using this link and further finding the 'IB' folder, you can find different previous tests for all subjects available in the IB along with their mark scheme (usually written as ms), so you can try to do them in the comfort of your own home and in your own time.

However, this link, as I'm sure when you enter it you will see, it has thousands of previous tests and materials from programmes and examinations that take place across the world. You can easily use these to get more practice (which is especially important when preparing for IB entrance exams).

And last but not least, free support:
While it doesn't sound like much, the support IB students have for each other extends past just your peers: it can be international. There are a range of WhatsApp groups that have been created in order for students, no matter their location, to ask questions about any subject their taking. Not only that, but this link leads you to a collection of other resources such as past papers, which are without a doubt the best thing an IB student can get their hands on.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ibresources/comments/7mne6y/resources_for_all_ib_subjects/

In summary, these links are by far some of the most useful when it comes to getting:

• handwritten notes by top-scoring IB students
• a free opportunity to ask students from around the world any question about the subject you're taking through international WhatsApp groups
• heaps upon heaps of free IB books (sometimes IB books can be incredibly pricey!)
• a support network with other IB students who are all in the same boat and willing to help :)

The best free online teaching resources for when your teacher might not

Sometimes, your IB teacher might not be up to scratch or might not even have the technique of teaching that totally suits you. That happens to some of the best of students, and this includes most of my friends. Luckily, because of the beautiful internet, this no longer proves to be the issue it once was for students. We can go online, make a few clicks and learn whatever your Chemistry teacher was droning on about for 2 hours in 5 minutes. Below, I've included some of the best resources available today in terms of teaching styles and delivery of information so you don't have to spend time skimming through mediocre sources because these are the best of the best.

First off, Khan Academy. 

Everyone should be pretty familiar with Khan Academy, but it definitely needs praise for being a pioneer in online education. Khan Academy gives you a more general overview of the subjects you'll most likely deal with in the IB, and can become incredibly detailed the more courses you take within it. It has nearly every subject you can imagine, and this is a perfect foot to start on if you have any questions about your subjects, especially during your first years of studying them. This isn't to say Khan Academy can't be used for more in-depth knowledge. The website and YouTube channel contain hundreds of hours of learning material, and dive into all sorts of topics in significant detail.

Because of this though, these details tend to be hard to get to: if you want the answer to one question you have in biology about metabolic pathways, you'll most likely have to take the whole 'metabolism' course that Khan Academy provides to find that 5 second answer you're looking for.

In saying this though, the ingenious way lessons are taught on Khan Academy and the extra time it takes to get to the answer you were looking for pays off anyway: you know your material much, much better. That's why I recommend anyone and everyone use it, no matter the age group and no matter the subject, Khan Academy has you covered.
https://www.khanacademy.org/

Next up, IBOLangLit on Instagram. 

Considered by some as the mother of IB English, Ms. Madhu is a certified IB moderator and English teacher. I've used loads of her material, because she really posts the most important andShe posts:

• exhaustive lists of literary devices
• how to use these literary devices to back up the points you make in your essays
• example analyses of different literary pieces written by Ms. Madhu herself (so you can get insight on how to accurately approach a text)

https://www.instagram.com/ibo.langlit/

To get your science and math scores boosted, check out Organic Chemistry Tutor on YouTube

While I haven't used the Organic Chemistry Tutor much personally, I've heard some great things about this channel. This YouTube channel has hundreds of hours dedicated
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEWpbFLzoYGPfuWUMFPSaoA (sciences, math)

All your questions covered - the best and most active IB forums

IB Survival
https://www.ibsurvival.com/
This forum is definitely the one I go to whenever I have any type of question, no matter how ridiculous. It has the answer to basically any question you could have about tests, assignments, what to do if you've failed your classes and even what to do when you're worried about breaking the IB Academic Honesty Policy. This forum has the answers to all your questions, and has been active for years now, making it one of the best IB forums out there.


The Student Room:
While I haven't used this forum as much as the other one, it still has great discussions, with some of the best and biggest spanning over the course of 15 years like this one about EE Topics:
https://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/forumdisplay.php?f=10
I recommend looking at this thread in particular to give you some inspiration for your future EE!

Finally, good ol' entertainment to ease the mind of a stressed IB student!

Sometimes, we all like to kick it back after a long day of studying, and these links have got all your IB-related entertainment covered. Laugh at the vagueness of TOK lessons, the whims of other IB students, and the craziness that is the IB:
https://www.facebook.com/IBmeme/
https://www.instagram.com/smartibapp/
https://www.instagram.com/ib.league/
https://www.instagram.com/dankibmemes/
https://www.instagram.com/thiccibmemes/
https://www.instagram.com/ibmemesfordankteens/
https://www.instagram.com/ibcult/

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