How to revise IB Math AA SL for the mocks: an eight-week plan a student can actually follow

Mocks are in about eight weeks, the syllabus feels like a pile, and every revision guide online says "make a timetable and do past papers." This is the timetable, with the order, the hours, and what to do about the mistakes you make along the way.

Before week 1: two things

Sit one full Paper 1 under exam conditions. Ninety minutes, timed, no calculator, no notes, no phone. Mark it against the scheme. This is your diagnostic. It may be worse than you expect. That is useful: it shows you where the marks are going before you spend eight weeks on the wrong things.

Sort the lost marks. Blank, wrong method, slip, or presentation, one letter per lost mark (the twelve mistakes shows what to look for). The blanks tell you which weeks below need more time. The slips tell you what to watch for in every session.

The weekly shape

Five to seven hours, spread as five sessions of about an hour, not one Sunday marathon. Each week:

• Two topic sessions: the topic's notes and formula-booklet entries, then worked examples you write out yourself, not just read.
• Two practice sessions: exam-style questions on that topic, timed, on paper, marked against the scheme, lost marks sorted and logged.
• One short review session: eight to ten questions from earlier weeks so earlier topics stay fresh.

The balance matters. It is tempting to revise by reading and rereading notes, but most of the marks come from answering questions on paper. If time is short, cut a topic session before a practice session.

The eight weeks

Week 1: algebra and number. Indices and surds, rearranging, solving linear and quadratic equations, fractions, sequences and series, the binomial theorem. It can feel like going backwards. It is where many slips start, and every later week uses it. Do not skip it because it looks easy.

Week 2: exponentials, logarithms and functions. Log laws and their limits (log(a + b) does not split into log a + log b), solving exponential equations, domains. Function notation, domain and range, inverse and composite functions.

Week 3: functions in depth. Transformations of graphs, quadratics and the discriminant (and the difference between "real roots" and "distinct real roots"), rational functions and asymptotes, exponential and log models.

Week 4: trigonometry, and the first full Paper 1. Radians, arcs and sectors, the sine and cosine rules, the unit circle, trig graphs, identities, and solving trig equations on a domain, always looking for the second solution. At the end of the week, a full Paper 1 under conditions. Compare it with the diagnostic: ideally fewer slips and fewer blanks.

Week 5: differentiation. Rules, chain, product and quotient. Tangents and normals, stationary points, optimisation. The chain rule is one of the most often skipped steps at SL; check for it in every derivative.

Week 6: integration and statistics. Antiderivatives with the constant, definite integrals with the limits carried through, areas including the part below the axis, kinematics. Then descriptive statistics, correlation and regression, and the calculator work for Paper 2: know how to find intersections, solve equations and compute probabilities on your GDC quickly and confidently.

Week 7: probability, and both papers under conditions. Venn and tree diagrams, conditional probability, the binomial and normal distributions. Then, on two consecutive days as in the real exam, a full Paper 1 and a full Paper 2 under conditions. Mark both. This is your mock before the mock.

Week 8: repair. No new content. Take the two papers apart: every lost mark sorted, every blank topic given a session, every repeated slip practised until it becomes rare. Finish with an exam-day plan: calculator in radian mode and charged, the formula booklet pages you use most familiar, the time-per-mark rule (about a minute a mark, no more than double a question's marks in minutes before moving on).

Rules that apply every week

• Paper 1 material without a calculator, always. If the topic is on Paper 1, the calculator is in another room.
• The formula booklet is open in every session. You are allowed it in the exam. Knowing where things are in it is worth minutes.
• Full working, every question, every time. Method marks are real marks. The habit has to be built before the exam, not during it.
• Timed means timed. Practising with a clock is how you learn the pace the exam needs.
• Let the mistake log guide the plan. By week 4 it should tell you, in one line, what you lose most marks on. By week 8 that line should have changed.

Checking your own work, and a second pair of eyes

Mark every practice question against the scheme, and when you lose a mark, find the exact line where it went wrong. Finding your own mistakes is one of the best ways to learn, and the substitution check in the twelve mistakes helps you catch many of them while you work.

Some mistakes are harder to spot in your own working, especially ones you have made so often that they look right. A second pair of eyes helps with those. A study partner who checks your working line by line, and whose working you check. A teacher's clinic where you bring the marked questions, not the topic. A tutor asked to watch you work rather than to explain. Or a format where the practice is done with a teacher looking at the working, which is what IB Math Lab's intensive is built around: five evenings a week, the syllabus in the same order as above, and two sessions a week where the practice happens with the teacher watching.

Whatever you choose, the order and the hours above are the plan. If a parent is asking how to help, show them this page and what a 4 to a 6 actually involves; the hours are the part they can protect.