IB Chemistry

IB Chemistry tends to follow a fairly predictable teaching order regardless of school: foundational topics like atomic structure, bonding, and stoichiometry come first, since almost every later topic — equilibrium, kinetics, acids and bases, organic chemistry — leans on being able to move fluidly between moles, mass, and concentration without re-deriving the relationship each time.

This is also where a lot of the syllabus's real difficulty sits, counterintuitively: mole calculations look like arithmetic, but a large share of exam marks lost across the whole two years trace back to a shaky foundation here rather than to the more conceptually advanced topics that come later. Equilibrium and acid-base chemistry usually follow, then organic chemistry, which asks for a different kind of thinking entirely — recognizing reaction mechanisms and functional groups by pattern rather than by calculation, which some students who are strong at the quantitative topics find genuinely harder.

HL students cover everything SL does plus additional depth in most topics and sit an extra paper, and — like IB Physics — chemistry includes an Internal Assessment built around a student-designed practical investigation, assessed on the quality of the research question and data analysis rather than on replicating a 'correct' experiment.

A TutorA Chemistry tutor can work through wherever a student's class has actually reached, but it's worth flagging directly if the sticking point is a foundational one — mole calculations or equilibrium expressions, for instance — since those tend to resurface as the real obstacle in later topics that look unrelated on the surface. Mention HL or SL, and whether IA support specifically is needed, when requesting a tutor.