How a Recent 42/45 IBDP Graduate Makes IB Business Management and Economics Easier for Struggling Students
Last Tuesday evening, I sat across from 16-year-old Lila at my kitchen table, the chipped edge of my coffee mug pressing into my palm. Her half-empty matcha latte, name misspelled “Lilah” on the sticky label, sweated through a paper coaster onto the wood. She slid her mock economics paper across the table, 22/45 scrawled in red pen at the top. “My teacher says I just need to memorize more definitions and case studies,” she said, picking at a loose thread on her Harry Styles hoodie. “I read the chapter three times, and I still can’t tell you why supply-side policy matters for anything I care about.”
I know that feeling. Two years ago, I sat where Lila is, staring at my first IB Business Management mock, a 19/45 staring back at me. I’d spent two weeks rewriting all my notes, memorizing every definition in the syllabus, and I still couldn’t apply any of it to the exam case. I graduated last year with 42/45 overall, 7s in both Business Management and Economics, and I started tutoring last fall after I decided to take a gap semester before starting university. I’d watched too many of my classmates pay hundreds of dollars a month to big tutoring chains that just handed them stacks of past papers and told them to memorize more, and I wanted to do something different.
After Lila admitted she couldn’t wrap her head around supply-side policy, I didn’t pull up the textbook definition. I asked her what her favorite spot in town is, the one she goes to every weekend. She immediately said the matcha shop where she got her latte. “What would help that shop hire another part-time barista and lower the price of their lattes?” I asked. She thought for a minute, then said the owner complains all the time about how high her small business taxes are. If the government cut those taxes, she’d have extra money to hire someone and drop prices. “That’s supply-side policy,” I told her. She blinked, then laughed, said that was way easier than the textbook version that took a full page to explain.
That’s the thing I see almost every student, and their parents, get wrong about IB Business and Economics. Everyone treats it like a pure memory subject, something you cram for by writing out definitions 10 times and memorizing case studies about multinational companies you’ve never interacted with. But IB examiners don’t grade you on how well you recite a definition. They grade you on how well you can apply the concept to a real problem. That shift in approach is the biggest change I bring to my classes, and it’s something parents can help with at home too, without any extra tutoring cost.
If your kid is stuck on a new concept, don’t make them re-read the chapter. Ask them to connect it to something they already love. If they’re obsessed with K-pop, talk about how supply and demand explains why resale tickets for their favorite group’s show cost 10 times the original price. If they play on a local soccer team, walk through the fixed and variable costs of running the club: the field rental is fixed no matter how many players show up, the new uniforms are a variable cost that changes with team size. It takes five minutes, and it sticks way better than an hour of memorization.
I see the same mistake with internal assessments, which make up 20% of a student’s final grade. So many students pick companies like Apple or Nike because they think there’s tons of information available. They end up drowning in annual reports and can’t find a focused question to answer. I tell all my students to pick a business they can actually reach. Last semester, a student of mine picked his dad’s local pizza place, did a 20-minute interview after school to get actual profit and cost numbers, and wrote an IA about raising prices for specialty toppings to cover increasing ingredient costs. He got a 7. Parents can help here too: if your kid is stuck for a topic, ask around your friend group. Chances are someone you know runs a small business, or manages a local store, that would be happy to let a student ask a few questions for a school project. It’s way easier than sifting through thousands of pages of a multinational’s annual report.
Last month, Lila’s mom met me for coffee after Lila had been coming to me for a month. She pulled out a stack of color-coded notes Lila had gotten from her previous tutor, 10 pages of notes per topic, most of them never unfolded. “I was worried you weren’t doing enough memorization,” she said. “She talks more about matcha shops than writing down definitions.” I told her we do one full past paper question a week, and we spend 20 minutes going over every mistake, talking about where she went wrong and what she’d do differently next time, instead of cramming 10 questions a week and never reviewing them. Lila got her next test back a week later, a 30/45, that’s a 5, up from a 3. She’s now on track to hit the 7 she needs for her business major application next year.
I don’t do fancy study packs or charge hundreds of dollars an hour. I keep my classes small, max four students, so everyone gets a chance to ask the stupid questions they’re too embarrassed to ask in a big class of 30 at school. I still remember what it felt like to be scared to raise my hand and admit I didn’t get a concept that everyone else seemed to understand, so I make space for that. Last week, we spent the first 15 minutes of a class talking about what dorm life is going to be like next year, instead of jumping into elasticity of demand, and that’s fine. Kids are more than just their test scores, and they’re not going to learn anything if they’re stressed out and burnt out.
For the pre-released case study paper that trips up so many students, I also teach a simple trick that cuts study time in half: instead of making a 20-page study guide with every possible detail, make three one-page notes: one for key problems the business faces, one for key stakeholders and their priorities, and one for three possible evaluation points for any common question. Parents can help their kid sort their notes into this structure a week before the exam, which cuts down on overwhelm more than any cram session.
I got a text from Lila this morning, a photo of her last quiz grade, 18/20, with a matcha emoji attached. I’m opening up a new small group class for incoming IB Year 1 students next month, and I still get nervous sometimes that I’m not a “real” teacher, that parents would rather go with the big company with the fancy website. But so far, every kid that’s come to me has moved up at least one grade level in three months. Some get 7s, some get 5s, and that’s okay—most universities just need a 5 for a conditional offer anyway. It’s not a perfect system, and I’m still figuring out what works for every kid. But right now, meeting kids where they are, connecting stuff they don’t get to stuff they care about, seems to be working pretty well.
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