This sounds obvious. But it is the foundation that everything else builds on.

When you miss a class, you do not just miss the notes. You miss the explanation, the examples your teacher chose, the questions other students asked, and the emphasis on what is likely to be tested. Those things do not appear in any textbook.

Show up. Sit near the front if you can. Put your phone face-down. When your teacher is speaking, your only job is to listen and write. Students who are genuinely present in lessons consistently need less revision time later — because the information went in properly the first time.

Good note-taking is not transcription. If you are copying everything your teacher says verbatim, your hand is moving but your brain is not really engaging with the content.

Instead: listen first. Understand the idea. Then write it down in your own words, as briefly as you can. This forces your brain to process what it just heard, rather than simply recording it.

Research published in Psychological Science (SAGE Journals) found that students who take handwritten notes in their own words understand and remember material significantly better than those who type notes word for word. The act of summarising is itself a learning activity.

Without a plan, most students revise the subjects they enjoy most, at the times they feel like it, for however long seems right. That is a reliable way to neglect your weakest subjects — which are usually the ones that need the most attention.

A proper weekly timetable changes this. Block out specific subjects on specific days. Deliberately give more time to your weaker areas. And treat your study sessions the same way you treat a lesson — as something you simply do not skip.

Our full guide on how to plan your study time for IB success walks through how to build a realistic schedule around school commitments, IA deadlines, and exam dates without burning out.

Re-reading notes is the most common revision activity — and one of the least effective. Your brain recognises the content and tells you it already knows it. But recognition is not the same as recall. Exams test recall.

The most effective revision activity is closing your notes and writing down everything you know about a topic from memory. What flows easily, you know well. What you struggle to write — that is your gap.

This technique is called active recall, and it is one of the most studied methods in learning science. Research from the American Psychological Association confirms it outperforms re-reading, highlighting, and summarising in almost every test of long-term retention.

Nothing prepares you for an exam better than doing one. Past papers let you practise under real time pressure, understand the specific question style your examiner uses, and see exactly what the mark scheme rewards — and what it does not.

Most students use past papers incorrectly. They look through a paper, check their score, and move on. That misses the entire point.

The correct method is to complete each paper under strict timed conditions, mark it line by line against the official mark scheme, log every mark lost and the reason why, and then go back to those questions one week later and try again without looking at the answers. This process — done consistently — is the single biggest driver of grade improvement we see across all of our 1:1 tutoring sessions.

For a full breakdown of how to use past papers effectively in IB, read our guide on how to get a 7 in IB exams.

One of the clearest patterns we see: students who get good grades ask for help early. Students who struggle wait until they are completely lost — and by then, catching up is much harder and much more stressful.

If you do not understand something after class, speak to your teacher before the next lesson. If the same question type keeps costing you marks in past papers, find out exactly why — either through a teacher, a study group, or a tutor who can explain it in a way that finally makes sense.

There is nothing to be embarrassed about. Every student has gaps. The only real question is whether you find them before the exam or during it.

Our IB examiner tutors offer 1:1 online sessions in every IB subject. Because they mark the actual exams, they can tell you precisely what the mark scheme looks for in your answers — not just what the right answer is, but how to write it so that it earns full marks.

Disorganisation costs marks in ways that are easy to overlook. When you cannot find your notes, do not know when an essay is due, or spend 15 minutes searching for a past paper before you can start studying — all of that is time and mental energy wasted before revision has even begun.

Keep one dedicated notebook or folder for each subject. Record every deadline and exam date in a single place — a wall planner, a Google Calendar, or a paper diary. Have everything you need within reach before you sit down to study, so there is nothing pulling you up from your desk once you start.

Organisation is not a natural trait some students have and others do not. It is a skill built through deliberate habits. The most organised students are not the tidiest people in general — they have just built the routine of putting things where they can always find them.

This is the most underrated tip on this entire list. And it is also one of the most evidence-backed.

During sleep, your brain processes and stores what you learned during the day. This is called memory consolidation — and it happens in the deeper stages of sleep, not while you are awake. Students who sleep well retain more of what they studied. Students who stay up late revising wake up remembering less of it than they did the night before.

The Sleep Foundation recommends 8 to 10 hours of sleep per night for teenagers. Studies consistently show that students who meet this target outperform those who do not on memory tasks, problem-solving, and timed exam performance.

If you are currently sacrificing sleep to study more — stop. It is making your studying less effective, not more. The best revision happens during the day, when your brain is fresh. The best consolidation happens at night, while you sleep.

Getting a question wrong is not the problem. Walking away without understanding why you got it wrong — that is where grades stall.

Every lost mark on a test, assignment, or past paper is useful information — but only if you analyse it. Ask yourself: was it a content gap? Did you misread the question? Did you rush? Did you know the answer but phrase it in a way the mark scheme did not reward?

Each of these has a completely different fix. Content gaps need revision. Careless errors need slowing down and double-checking. Exam technique problems need mark scheme practice. If you treat all lost marks the same, you will keep making the same mistakes in different subjects.

Build an error log — a simple notebook where you record every lost mark, its topic, and the specific reason. After a few weeks of past papers, patterns become clear. Those patterns are your personal priority list. This is the backbone of the most effective IB revision strategies we use with students.

You cannot study well when you are burned out, anxious, or running on empty. Good grades come from consistent, sustainable effort — not from pushing yourself past the point of exhaustion.

Take genuine breaks. Eat proper meals. Exercise — even a 20-minute walk raises focus and lowers stress hormones for hours after. Spend time with people you like. Keep at least one thing in your week that has nothing to do with school.

The NHS and leading university wellbeing services consistently report that students who maintain a healthy balance during exam periods perform better — not worse — than those who remove everything from their lives and study every available hour.

Burnout does not just feel bad. It actively reduces your brain’s ability to remember things, make connections, and perform under pressure. Protecting your energy is not weakness. It is strategy.