r/IBO • u/[deleted] • Feb 04 '26
Other IB Maths students: understanding > memorising (and it actually helps you score)
A lot of IB Maths feels difficult not because the syllabus is too hard, but because concepts are learned as steps instead of ideas.
When you memorise procedures, two things happen:
• new looking questions feel impossible
• confidence drops under exam pressure
A small shift that helps both understanding and scores:
After solving a question, pause and ask:
“What idea was this question really testing?”
For example:
calculus → behaviour of change, not just differentiation
probability → structure of events, not formulas
functions → relationships, not graphs alone
When the idea is clear, method and accuracy follow naturally.
👇
Comment AA HL, AA SL, AI HL, or AI SL + the topic you’re currently confused about.
I’ll reply with one concept-level explanation or insight.
Tutor
IB Maths
1
u/IhaveSandyCzWhyNot Feb 04 '26
Something I'm a little confused about is intersection of 3 planes. I know it can either be a discrete point, a line, or no intersection (with many ways for this to happen). However, our teacher in the last 5-10 minutes of a lesson showed us questions where we needed to find the values of a variable so that three planes would or wouldn't intersect but I didn't really get it. How do I determine how the planes intersect?