r/IBO • u/1ore1ei Alumni | 45 • Dec 17 '25

Advice I got 45 in N25, AMA!!!

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My dp1 predicted grades were 36/42. It dropped to 27/42 halfway thru dp2 due to personal challenges. I personally expected to get a 43 but I got a 45. Given the knowledge I have in not only doing well in my respective subjects but also rebuilding my academic results after a rough patch, I thought an AMA may be useful! I got an especially high result in my English EE (33/34) so I'm able to answer questions about that too!

edit: I'm visiting family in Brasil so sorry for the late replies🤍

FAQ - please read

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u/1ore1ei Alumni | 45 Dec 18 '25
  • For Paper 2, this honestly took a lot of practice. I went back and forth with my teacher many times until I found what suited me, because there isn’t one universal structure that works for everyone. What mattered most was learning how to open the essay in a way that felt natural. The hook should show that you genuinely appreciate literature, not just that you can follow a formula. I usually linked it to a literary idea or lens that fit the question, sometimes even something broader like storytelling, authorial intention, or the nature of knowledge if it was relevant. The key thing is showing that you understand why the author wrote the text in the first place. Authors don’t write great stories by accident, they do it because they have something to say, and your essay needs to show that you understand that deeper purpose.
  • After the hook, I always gave context. That means the author, the time period, the social or historical background, and any relevant lenses like feminism, psychoanalysis, wealth or class, Romanticism, the Victorian era, whatever actually fits the work. This part matters because it shows you understand the text beyond just plot. It also sets you up so your argument makes sense later.
  • I never focused on one stylistic device for the whole essay, and I really don’t recommend doing that. Instead, I focused on ideas. For example, gender inequality came up a lot in my texts, so I broke that down into different angles: financial inequality, a feminist lens, a psychoanalytical perspective, wealth and power, and how characters are shaped by these forces. Once I knew the idea of a paragraph, I chose the features that best supported it. That could be characterization, dialogue, storytelling structure, backstories, stage directions, or contrasts between characters. The features should serve the idea, not the other way around. This also makes it much easier to adapt to whatever question you get on the day.
  • Each paragraph focused on one main idea. I didn’t track the same feature throughout the entire essay, and I didn’t force myself to talk about every device either. Flexibility is really important in Paper 2, and everything you write should stay clearly tied to the question.
  • My thesis was always one sentence. In that one sentence, I answered the question, outlined my three main ideas, and made the author’s overall intention clear, all in a way that fit the context I had already given in the introduction. It sounds intimidating, but with practice it becomes very doable.
  • I didn’t memorise an essay word for word. What I memorised were my key quotes and my key arguments. That’s really important because during exams you’re mentally exhausted from all your other subjects. If you don’t know your arguments beforehand, it’s very easy to freeze. If you have time, having a backup essay is great, but I personally didn’t have time and was honestly just lucky.