IB Maths AA practice questions: a six-week revision plan

Weeks 1–2: rebuild the algebra spine

Almost every lost mark in a Maths AA paper traces back to algebra, not to the topic being examined. Spend the first fortnight on manipulation: indices and logs, rearranging, factorising, partial fractions if you are HL, and confident handling of surds and fractions without a calculator.

Do short, high-volume sets. Twenty quick questions a day beats one long paper a week at this stage.

Weeks 3–4: topic drills on your weakest areas

Rank the five topic areas — number and algebra, functions, geometry and trigonometry, statistics and probability, calculus — by how confident you feel, then work bottom-up. Practise each topic by syllabus point rather than by chapter, since the exam samples points, not chapters.

• Functions: transformations, domain and range, inverse and composite functions.
• Trigonometry: identities, solving equations over a given interval, the ambiguous case.
• Calculus: chain, product and quotient rules; optimisation; definite integrals and areas.
• Statistics: binomial and normal distributions, and what the calculator does versus what you must show.

Week 5: separate Paper 1 and Paper 2 technique

Paper 1 is non-calculator, so exact values, surd form and clean algebra decide your score. Paper 2 is calculator-active, and the skill is knowing when to stop working by hand and let the GDC solve, while still writing enough method to earn the marks.

Sit one of each under full timed conditions this week and review them separately — the failure modes are different.

Week 6: timing, then consolidation

Work to roughly one mark per minute plus reading time. If a question stalls for more than two minutes beyond that budget, flag it and move on; unattempted easy marks later in the paper cost more than an unfinished hard question.

Finish the week re-answering everything you dropped across the previous five weeks rather than starting new material.

Stop losing method marks

Method marks are awarded for a correct approach even when the final answer is wrong — but only if the approach is visible. Write the rule you are applying, substitute before you simplify, and never erase working. A wrong answer with clear method routinely scores more than a bare correct answer.