Use a past-paper error log to choose your next practice

Start with an appropriate question set

Choose questions that match your course, level and assessment version. Ask your teacher which older papers still contain relevant practice after a syllabus change. Use papers and markschemes supplied through legitimate school or authorized sources. Decide whether the session tests understanding, topic fluency or performance under time pressure before you begin.

For a diagnostic session, retain all your working and note where you became uncertain. For a timed session, follow the relevant paper conditions and record which questions you left incomplete. Both kinds of practice can provide useful evidence when their purpose is clear.

Record the first cause of the error

After checking the answer, identify where your reasoning first departed from a sound method. Distinguish a knowledge gap, an unrecognized cue, an execution error, a misunderstood instruction and a time-management problem. These are practical categories for your own log, not official IB assessment labels.

Avoid recording only 'careless.' If you substituted the diameter where a formula required radius, write that precise cause. If an essay described events when the question required evaluation, note the instruction you missed and what kind of judgment the answer needed.

Use a compact row for each useful lesson

A log row can contain the question reference, topic, error cause, corrected principle, next practice action and retest result. Keep the description short enough to review. You do not need to transcribe an entire markscheme or record every lost mark separately when several losses come from one underlying mistake.

Illustrative mathematics row: 'Cylinder volume; used diameter as radius; identify r from the diagram before substitution; attempt two fresh geometry questions with differently presented dimensions.' This creates a testable action. Copying the correct formula alone would not check whether you recognize the original cue next time.

Make the correction match the problem

For a knowledge gap, revisit the concept and explain it from memory before trying another question. For an execution error, practise the troublesome step in a new setting. For an instruction error, annotate the demand and plan an answer that meets it. For a timing problem, examine whether time was lost through weak knowledge, overlong writing or an inefficient approach.

An illustrative humanities row might say: 'Judgment asserted without evidence; compare two relevant factors, connect evidence to each and explain which matters more in the stated context.' The repair should target reasoning, not just add a concluding phrase.

Retest transfer after a gap

Choose a fresh question using the same underlying idea and attempt it after enough time that the answer is not simply familiar. Work without looking at the correction first. Then check whether the earlier cause recurs. If it does, revise the action: the problem may be conceptual rather than a missing reminder.

• Select fresh questions instead of immediately repeating only the identical item.
• Record whether you solved the problem independently.
• Revisit repeated causes before collecting more papers.
• Use mixed practice when you need to recognize which method applies.

Review patterns to allocate study time

Once a week, look for recurring causes across the log. Choose the next practice block from the most useful unresolved pattern. Keep successful retests visible so the log reflects improvement as well as mistakes. Periodically return to timed practice to see whether your improved understanding remains available under the conditions of the paper.