If you have any questions, PM me on reddit (user: u/Decent-Cheetah4742) or email me ([email protected])

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Resources

• IB English Guys
  • This is the best channel for anything English related. Whether it’s Paper 1, IO, Paper 2, or the HL essay, they’ve probably got a video for it. I mainly watched them for help on the Paper 1 and the IO (totally recommend their videos).
• Ashley's HL English Videos
  • Back when I was stressing for DP 1, I remember coming across Ashley’s videos and oh my days what a GEM 💎 they are. She goes over all things Paper 1 and Paper 2 and even offers her own examples in a google drive folder (which I’ve linked in the Samples section of this page). CAN’T recommend her channel enough!
• Sparknotes and Litcharts
  • I think these two are pretty self-explanatory and I definitely recommend looking over the sparknotes/ litcharts after doing your reading. However with that being said, your teacher has likely also read the sparknotes and litcharts of the text so be sure to have some originality when it comes to analysis. Use these to inspire, not copy.
• JSTOR, Google Scholar, any scholarly journal
  • This is definitely not mandatory, BUT whenever I wanted to truly immerse myself into the text, or when I needed a deeper explanation of a text (texts I used for my IO or HL essay), I would read a scholarly article about the text if possible. I think it allows for a little more of a unique perspective than litcharts or sparknotes which I find to be pretty helpful, especially when it came to my HL essay which I scored a 7 on. </aside>

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Resources

Style and Effects table (not mine)

• I reviewed this table before mocks to familiarize myself with different style choices and get myself use to using a variety of them in my papers.

Paper 1 vocab .pdf

• I made this vocab sheet and read through it before almost every paper. I get pretty nervous prior to an English mock, so being able to read through a list of adjectives right before an exam made me feel a little more prepared.

English Resource document (not mine)

• This document was made by u/Top-Wolverine5521 (credit). It does include some Lang and Lit material, but I think you’ll find it pretty helpful nonetheless :) </aside>

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Sample Essays

• Ashley's Samples (7 scoring)
  • Like I said, Ashley has some AMAZING essays here so you can go ahead and take a look!
• English A Lit Drive
  • a drive with really good resources!
• ibdocs
  • This is pretty self explanatory… but if you go on here, just do a deep dive and you can find some really good resources! </aside>

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English Mantras

• Style + Effect = Meaning
• Always look for the big three: structure, language, and technique </aside>

I scored a 6 in IB English (3 marks from a 7), and here are all my tips :)

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Tips

• Annotating my books 📔

  • This definitely isn’t mandatory, but I highly suggest this for books you think you will be using for your major assessments. What I use:

    • highlighter
    • black pen (straight edge is optional)
    • most importantly, tabs! The ones I used look like these below

    

  • So essentially, before starting a book, I’ll look at the sparknotes and litcharts to get a feel of what themes will be present throughout the text, and I’ll create a key at the front of my book with the color of the tab and the corresponding theme. As more themes appear throughout the text, I’ll add more tabs.

• HL Essay 📜
  • For context, I scored an 18/20. When writing the HL essay, I would choose the text that you’re least confident about and don’t think you would use for the paper 2 or io. With that being said, this doesn’t mean you should choose a text that you don’t understand and can’t find anything insightful to talk about. For my HL essay, I wrote it about a narrative poem, and I didn’t feel like I was able to use it in a paper 2 or an io.
• Paper 2 ✏️
  • I’ve seen SO many people prep an insane amount of texts for paper 2 and let me just tell you that unless English is your only HL subject (which it prob isn’t if you’re doing DP), it’s going to be a struggle, especially if you’re HL. I found out that I scored a 27/30 on my IB paper 2 and I only prepped three texts (the third one, not so much though…). Therefore, I highly advice you to prioritize quality over quantity; value the quality of your analysis and connections between texts over the amount of texts you’re able to prepare.
• Overall Writing Advice 📝
  • I always kept a “style table” in my binder (see resources section) and used it get myself used to using different style choices during exams.
  • I also made myself a vocab table (see resources section) to help score highly in the language section. </aside>

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About me!!

Hi, I’m an M25 graduate who scored a 40/45 on the IB Diploma. I scored a 766 on my HLs (Biology, History, English Literature), and a 666 on my SLs (Math AA, Arabic B, Psychology). My EE in English scored an A (32/34), and I received an A in TOK as well (3 points). I also took ESS as an extra course and scored a 7. I created this page to support IB students—especially with the new Biology syllabus, but also across other subjects. Whether you’re looking for guidance, study strategies, or just have questions, I’m more than happy to help however I can!

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