IB Revision: Effective Mind Maps

Mind maps have become a lot more popular in recent years in terms of creative active recall methods. While they can look very aesthetic and very visually appealing, using them effectively so that your IB revision is impactful can be tricky sometimes. Here is a step-by-step guide on how you can improve your mind-mapping recall game!

Step 1: 

Choose a topic from the IB Subject Syllabus that you need to revise and put it in the centre. 

Examples: 

• Biology: Cell Respiration 
• ESS: Water Pollution

Keep it to one topic per mind map and try to fit it all on one page. 

Step 2: 

Ask yourself, “If this were to appear in an exam, which big areas do I need to know?”

These sub-areas will become your main branches. I would recommend having no more than 6 to keep it concise. This could include processes, key concepts, cause-and-effects, as well as key formulas.

Step 3: 

This next step is about recalling your “exam-useful” key details. It is important that the information you’re adding are written in brief sentences, not paragraphs. This will greatly help you when we try to learn it verbatim. 

Here are some things you can consider adding: 

• Summarized step-by-step processes
• Pros/Cons
• Definitions of key-terms
• Important examples
• Case Studies 

Step 4: 

Use colour and doodles intentionally. Perhaps use only one colour per branch, as this can help with associating your memory to specific prompts. I personally only use arrows to show processes and draw small icons to indicate if something is really important. With how you design your mind maps, keep it consistent to help memorisation. 

Step 5: 

Active revision- this is the most important step. Your mind map won’t help you from just staring at it. 

Do this: 

1. Look at the centre topic title. What are the first few things to mind? 
2. Cover the branches
3. Try to redraw as much as possible from memory or explain it out loud. 
4. Check what you’ve missed and add in a different colour. 

The information that you have missed is exactly what you need to revise for that topic. 

You can repeat this process until you remember as much as possible when practicing regurgitating the information. Make sure to implement a routine to add mind map repetition regularly into your revision time.

 Conclusion

Use your mindmaps alongside other active recall methods. Elements you often forget from your flashcards for example, can be added to your mind maps. Furthermore, you can also easily use your mind-maps to examine where there are syllabus topic crossovers. This is very important as many IB subjects structure questions to link to more than one syllabus area. 

We hope this will boost your mind mapping revision confidence! Happy revising!