How to revise for the 2026 IB exams (without panicking)

Love them or hate them - and to be honest, if you're reading this, you probably hate them - the IB exams arrive all the same. The culmination of two years of work, condensed into just a few oh-so-important weeks. It's too late to back out now, so time to make the best of it. But how?

I know how stressful this period can be. I have been in the exact same situation myself. Somehow, though, I came out the other end with a 45, so allow me to give some advice that might prove useful.

Your time is important, so I'll keep this brief and give you my top tips for getting the most out of your revision period, starting with the most important of all: prioritize!

Accept that you can't do everything

Yes, that sounds harsh. But let's face it, when there are so many subjects and so much to cover, one has to make some choices.

Having gotten this far, you'll already know that you are stronger in some subjects than in others. Maybe Maths comes more easily to you, or maybe you can wing your Lang & Lit essays - or perhaps you have a strange intuition for Economics. Whatever it is, it's important to identify, because I am sure that certain other subjects are quite the opposite: the ones that require hours and hours of deep reading and practice to get even the slightest hang of.

And those are the ones you want to spend your time on. Yes, they are probably also your least favorites. We would all love to work on things we like all day, but the fact is that you will have exams in all your subjects, and whichever ones are hardest for you will require much more time. So put aside more time - and not just a little, but much more time - for the things that stump you.

This may sound obvious, but you would be surprised at the number of students who plan the same amount of revision hours for each of their subjects. Don't go into that trap. Spend minimal hours on the things you already feel confident on. Spend almost all your hours on the things you don't.

But I know that I will just procrastinate all the time away!

Yeah, we all do. Procrastination is perhaps the biggest time thief out there - but not just for IB students. Doctors, CEOs, professors, scientists, they all procrastinate. It is simply the human condition to avoid the work that we know is really important and get distracted by literally anything else instead.

So how do we avoid it? There are entire books written on this subject, but my advice is actually quite straight-forward: just do 5 minutes.

I find that procrastination is really about avoiding the start of something, and we avoid the start because we know that once we get going, we should really be spending hours and hours on whatever it is we need to do. And that feels uncomfortable. But what if we just did 5 minutes of it?

Telling yourself that you will do 5 minutes rather than 3 hours makes it much easier to just start. If you need to revise a Maths topic, tell yourself that you will just look at one worked example for now. If you need to write an essay, tell yourself that you will just write the first paragraph and then take a break. If you are reading a textbook, tell yourself that you will start with just the first page and continue later.

Now, what will actually happen is that once you've done those 5 minutes, you will very likely continue writing the essay, read one page more of the textbook, or try one more example. Because once you get started it's much easier to just keep going - it's the "getting started" part that is scary.

But it's very important that you genuinely tell yourself that you will only do 5 minutes. If you truly believe that, then getting started is not difficult at all, because you know that it's very little you need to do. Then watch the magic happen as the 5 minutes somehow turn into 10, then 15, then 20, and so on.

It's not perfect, and you'll probably procrastinate from time to time anyways, but this trick has helped me a lot, because our brain likes thinking about just 5 minutes much more than it likes thinking about large timeframes. Try it out!

Do the exam a hundred times before the exam

Ok, so having prioritized your subjects and somehow not procrastinated for once, what you should you actually do? Many things, obviously, but one is much more important than the rest: practice the exam.

And I don't mean just doing past papers, although that's an important part of it. I mean actually doing the exam in the exact same way as it will happen for real.

That means that you put aside your phone, your computer, and any other distractions. You print out a past paper and any formula sheets that you will have on the real exam (yes, print them out!). You sit down in total isolation, perhaps in your room or in your local library, and you put a timer on. Is the Paper 2 120 minutes long? Then put a timer for 120 minutes. Then do the exam exactly as it will be in real life - no checking your answers along the way, no giving yourself extra time because you didn't finish everything, no getting up and doing something else while the time is still going.

This serves a couple of purposes: first of all, you will get very used to the exact exam conditions. Many people find that even when they feel prepared, the pressure of the actual exam gets to them on the day and their brain freezes. If you have already put yourself in that situation many times before, you will be much better prepared to handle it.

Secondly, this will reveal your weak spots very clearly. Did you spend way too much time on a calculus question? Then you need to practice more calculus. Did you know what to say in your essay but not have time to write it all? Then you need to practice writing more concisely.

And finally, you will learn to prioritize. The IB exams are time-pressured, and you definitely want to spend the most amount of time on the questions that you can get the most marks from. This is actually much easier said than done. It's a skill that needs to be refined with practice. Do a practice exam under real condition many times, and you will learn how to use your time in the right way.

Still feel out of your depth?

Don't worry, that's normal. Although the simple advice presented here - prioritize your subjects, tell yourself to do just 5 minutes, and practice the exams again and again and again - can go a long way, there might still be topics that you simply cannot get your head around.

If that is the case in Physics or one of the Maths subjects, it might be helpful to connect with an expert tutor to guide you. Maybe someone who got a 45 themselves? Lindahl Tutoring is currently offering a trial class for new students, and it's the perfect chance to try it out. Read here what other students have to say about our tutoring, or book your first class directly here - no commitments required.

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Good luck with the revision!

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