Worthwhile things to do over the holidays
Relax
This is not an absence of activity, but a really worthwhile thing to have a go at. It is enjoyable, energising and should be a conscious excercise with an measureable outcome. Afterwards, you should feel calmer, more positive and more interested in doing stuff. It is a lifetimes work finding out how best to relax in a given situation. Relaxing well will make you a better person. Some quick suggestions can be found here. This tip here is absolutely worth a try.
Read
There will always be a difference between someone who is well-read and someone who is not, and for things like Oxbridge this difference can be used to decide if your application should succeed. Reading well won't necessarily make you a better person, but it allow you to be better informed if chance ever allows you to be involved in the decsion about how your time will be used. A list of what you could read is here.
Expand your mind - Click here for tips on how to do this
Past Paper Questions
Completing past exam questions on topics you have studied, then checking the markscheme to find you got them right, just because you can, is the greatest thing that has ever, or could ever, be done by anyone. Ever. You will become a the best kind of person doing this.
For class 10
Write your first draft to your Personal Statement for university. If you are interested in getting into the best universities, you will need possibly 15 drafts of this. Your first draft is basically just a list of things you have done (a good version might even try to explain why that list of things makes you a good applicant). If that list doesn't impress you very much, you need to start doing things that you could add. Immediately. Read examples here.
Finish off your Extended Essay. A useful device for making this happen is to assume that whatever gets written over this period is essentially what should hand in (if you are aiming for 35 points and above), with a few small cosmetic changes. This is especially true if you want 40 points and above. More points have been needlessly lost to the EE at IB than nearly everything. Some time sinks, like Call of Duty, are just insane and therefore unavoidable. But changing an EE/ToK grade from a BB to AB (2 to 3 extra points) usually will hit at least one subject's IA grade, maybe more, in turn converting weak 7s to strong 6s (or worse if a lot of lesson or revision time is also lost and it impacts your exam grades).
Finish off your Internal Assessments. Whatever time you win over to productivity during this period can be later spent in your final year concentrating on learning stuff, which is a big deal when you are sitting 15 to 20 exams (e.g. during your mocks and especially your actual IB final exams).
For Class 9
If all of your exams went well then hopefully you are using this time to do something productive (e.g. volenteering, work experience, visiting a university) that might be included in your personal statement for university: ideally what you do now will be a less impressive version of what you will organise for yourself for next summer that takes you into your final year. What you do next year will be your last great oppertunity to stand out from the others with exactly the same grades who will be rejected by your dream university. Sometimes when you do things like this, you can even find out what you want to do with your life :if I had not tried volenteering to teach to help improve my CV I don't think I would ever have wanted to become a teacher. Most likely though, work experience will help you rule out things you don't want to do.
Prepare for your IB subjects. Your teachers will be starting your IB course with the idea that you now know what is at iGCSE level. If you feel the exams didn't go well, this is the first place to start. If the exams went well, ask your teacher what will be the first couple of topics in the course and read IB level. In chemistry, it's usually Atomic Structure (IB Topic 2) and the Periodic Table (IB Topic 3).
Class
Relax
This is not an absence of activity, but a really worthwhile thing to have a go at. It is enjoyable, energising and should be a conscious excercise with an measureable outcome. Afterwards, you should feel calmer, more positive and more interested in doing stuff. It is a lifetimes work finding out how best to relax in a given situation. Relaxing well will make you a better person. Some quick suggestions can be found here. This tip here is absolutely worth a try.
Read
There will always be a difference between someone who is well-read and someone who is not, and for things like Oxbridge this difference can be used to decide if your application should succeed. Reading well won't necessarily make you a better person, but it allow you to be better informed if chance ever allows you to be involved in the decsion about how your time will be used. A list of what you could read is here.
Expand your mind - Click here for tips on how to do this
Past Paper Questions
Completing past exam questions on topics you have studied, then checking the markscheme to find you got them right, just because you can, is the greatest thing that has ever, or could ever, be done by anyone. Ever. You will become a the best kind of person doing this.
For class 10
Write your first draft to your Personal Statement for university. If you are interested in getting into the best universities, you will need possibly 15 drafts of this. Your first draft is basically just a list of things you have done (a good version might even try to explain why that list of things makes you a good applicant). If that list doesn't impress you very much, you need to start doing things that you could add. Immediately. Read examples here.
Finish off your Extended Essay. A useful device for making this happen is to assume that whatever gets written over this period is essentially what should hand in (if you are aiming for 35 points and above), with a few small cosmetic changes. This is especially true if you want 40 points and above. More points have been needlessly lost to the EE at IB than nearly everything. Some time sinks, like Call of Duty, are just insane and therefore unavoidable. But changing an EE/ToK grade from a BB to AB (2 to 3 extra points) usually will hit at least one subject's IA grade, maybe more, in turn converting weak 7s to strong 6s (or worse if a lot of lesson or revision time is also lost and it impacts your exam grades).
Finish off your Internal Assessments. Whatever time you win over to productivity during this period can be later spent in your final year concentrating on learning stuff, which is a big deal when you are sitting 15 to 20 exams (e.g. during your mocks and especially your actual IB final exams).
For Class 9
If all of your exams went well then hopefully you are using this time to do something productive (e.g. volenteering, work experience, visiting a university) that might be included in your personal statement for university: ideally what you do now will be a less impressive version of what you will organise for yourself for next summer that takes you into your final year. What you do next year will be your last great oppertunity to stand out from the others with exactly the same grades who will be rejected by your dream university. Sometimes when you do things like this, you can even find out what you want to do with your life :if I had not tried volenteering to teach to help improve my CV I don't think I would ever have wanted to become a teacher. Most likely though, work experience will help you rule out things you don't want to do.
Prepare for your IB subjects. Your teachers will be starting your IB course with the idea that you now know what is at iGCSE level. If you feel the exams didn't go well, this is the first place to start. If the exams went well, ask your teacher what will be the first couple of topics in the course and read IB level. In chemistry, it's usually Atomic Structure (IB Topic 2) and the Periodic Table (IB Topic 3).
Class
