Best IB Study Resources in 2026: Ranked and Reviewed

Finding the best IB study resources takes more thought than for most qualifications. You are managing six subjects across two years, each with its own Internal Assessment, while producing a Theory of Knowledge essay, a 4,000-word Extended Essay, and logging CAS hours. The revision resources that work well for GCSE or A-level don't always map cleanly onto what IB demands, particularly its emphasis on extended written analysis and its command-term-driven mark schemes.

This guide covers seven IB study resources that are genuinely useful for the course's specific requirements, ranked by how much active learning they drive rather than by how well-designed their marketing is.

The best IB study resources are Root (AI teaching with examiner-quality marking), Revision Village (IB Maths specialist), IB Questionbank (official past papers), Save My Exams (structured notes and exam-style practice), Kognity (digital IB textbooks), Khan Academy (maths and science foundations), and Quizlet (flashcards for key terms).

Why the IB requires a different revision approach

Six subjects. Internal assessments. An Extended Essay. Theory of Knowledge. That is a very different study load from a standard national curriculum, and it means two things for revision: first, you need tools that are efficient per hour, because time is genuinely short. Second, you need tools that prepare you for extended written analysis, not just short-answer recall.

The research on what works is clear. In 2013, psychologist John Dunlosky and colleagues published a major review of study techniques, rating each by its actual effect on learning. Practice testing and distributed practice (spacing reviews over time) received the highest utility ratings. Re-reading and highlighting received low utility ratings, despite being the default habit for most students. That finding, from Dunlosky et al. (2013) in Psychological Science in the Public Interest, shapes this ranking: tools that test you beat tools that let you read.

The IB's specific demand for written analysis adds another layer. A student who can recall facts cannot necessarily write an "evaluate" response at Band 6 level. This is where having a resource that marks your written answers, rather than just checking whether you ticked the right box, genuinely changes your preparation. A tool like Root handles that directly: rather than leaving you to guess whether your paragraph would earn marks, it shows you precisely what the examiner expects and where your answer fell short.

Quick comparison

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1. Root: the top pick for active IB exam practice

Root (roottutor.com) is an AI tutor built for IB, GCSE, IGCSE and A-level students. It has a free tier; paid plans unlock more usage and still cost a fraction of a private IB tutor's typical rate of £30 to 50 per hour.

What separates Root from a revision website is how it handles the specific demands of IB exams. In its teaching mode, Root works through problems with you step by step rather than handing over the answer. It asks questions and helps you reason towards the solution yourself, which is the approach that builds the kind of independent thinking IB essays and paper responses reward. Passive reading creates the feeling of understanding; active retrieval is what builds memory that holds under exam pressure.

In exam practice mode, Root marks your written answers the way a real examiner would, against IB-style criteria. It tells you where you dropped marks and what you would need to write to gain them back. That level of written-answer feedback is what private tutors charge to provide and what almost no digital revision tool offers. For IB subjects where extended response carries significant marks, including Sciences, History, Geography and English, this is a meaningful advantage.

Root's test-prep mode finds your weakest topics automatically and brings them back on a spaced schedule. The more sessions you complete, the more tailored it becomes: it remembers what you keep getting wrong and concentrates drilling there. Alongside that, Root offers guided revision, flashcards, saved notes, and a Get Ahead mode for topics you want to understand before class. It draws real diagrams, graphs, geometry figures and chemistry structures, and typesets proper mathematical notation, which matters for IB Maths and sciences.

One honest note: Root is our own product. We have listed it first because it genuinely combines active teaching, examiner-quality marking, and automatic weakness targeting in a single tool. That is what you would otherwise need several separate resources and a tutor's marking time to replicate.

Honest limitation: Root is a newer tool and does not yet have the name recognition of the resources IB schools most commonly assign. It works best when you engage actively with the practice modes: if your preference is watching lecture videos rather than being tested, a different starting tool may suit you better.

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2. Revision Village: the IB Maths specialist

Revision Village (revisionvillage.com) is the most focused IB Maths resource available online. It covers both Mathematics: Analysis and Approaches (AA) and Mathematics: Applications and Interpretation (AI) at Standard Level and Higher Level, with past-paper questions organised by topic and difficulty, full video worked solutions, and predicted papers.

The topic-bank format is particularly effective for revision. Instead of sitting a full past paper in one sitting, you can drill every IB Maths question from recent exam sessions on a single topic, complex numbers or integration for example, which is a much more efficient way to close a specific weakness than jumping between unrelated questions.

Revision Village is a paid subscription, though some free content is available. IB students taking Maths AA HL or who are struggling with specific maths topics generally find it worth the cost.

Honest limitation: Revision Village is a maths specialist. Students looking for resources in English, History, Biology, Chemistry or other non-maths IB subjects need to look elsewhere.

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3. IB Questionbank: the official past-paper archive

IB Questionbank, available through the International Baccalaureate Organisation at ibo.org, is the official resource for past IB exam questions across subjects. Questions are organised by subject, paper, topic and difficulty level, and the archive covers many years of real exams.

Because these are genuine IB questions with official mark schemes, there is no substitute for what Questionbank provides. Doing past papers is important for any high-stakes exam; for the IB, where mark schemes use specific command terms and markbands that students must learn to target, practising with official materials is essential. Schools purchase Questionbank licences; teachers typically set up student access through the school's subscription. Ask your IB coordinator if your school subscribes and how to log in.

Honest limitation: Questionbank provides questions and mark schemes, not explanations. If you do not understand why an answer is correct, or why a response earns a particular mark level, you need another resource alongside it to fill in the gap.

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4. Save My Exams: structured notes and exam-style practice

Save My Exams (savemyexams.com) offers concise revision notes and topic-by-topic exam-style questions with worked answers for IB subjects alongside GCSE, IGCSE and A-level. Content is written by qualified teachers and aligned to IB specifications. Coverage spans a range of IB subjects including Mathematics, Sciences, Economics and more.

The practice questions are useful for topic-by-topic drilling when you want structured questions with clear worked solutions to check against. The notes provide a quick, accurate reference when something from your textbook or class notes is unclear.

A 7-day free trial gives full access before any subscription decision.

Honest limitation: Save My Exams is a static resource. It does not adapt to your weaknesses, track your progress across topics, or give you feedback on your own written responses. It works best as a structured note and question bank rather than a personalised system.

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5. Kognity: IB-aligned digital textbooks

Kognity (kognity.com) provides digital textbooks built specifically for IB courses, with embedded questions and practice material integrated directly into the reading. Coverage is focused on IB Sciences and a number of other subjects, and most students access Kognity through a school subscription, meaning it typically costs them nothing directly.

The integration of questions within the textbook content is the main benefit: you can check your understanding of a topic immediately after reading about it, rather than having to switch to a separate resource. That keeps the pace of active engagement higher than pure reading.

Honest limitation: Kognity is primarily a textbook platform. The embedded questions are useful for immediate comprehension checks, but they are not a substitute for full exam-paper practice or for a system that tracks cumulative weaknesses and schedules what you need to revisit.

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6. Khan Academy: free foundation for maths and sciences

Khan Academy (khanacademy.org) is entirely free and widely considered one of the best free maths and science resources available. For IB students, it is most useful for filling foundational gaps, particularly in Maths, Physics, Chemistry and Biology, when you find the IB course is moving faster than your prior knowledge can keep up with.

Khan Academy's content is aligned to the US curriculum rather than the IB specification, so it should not be your primary IB revision source. But for understanding a concept from first principles before you practise it in an IB context, it is a genuinely good free option.

Honest limitation: Khan Academy does not align to IB syllabuses, command terms or markbands. It is a foundation supplement, not an IB revision tool. Use it to understand; use IB-specific resources to practise.

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7. Quizlet: vocabulary and key definitions

Quizlet (quizlet.com) is the most widely used flashcard tool, with a large library of community-made IB sets for vocabulary, key terms, formulae, case studies and definitions. It suits content-heavy IB subjects where terminology matters: Language and Literature, History, Economics, Biology.

The basic flashcard view remains free, though Quizlet has moved a number of features behind a paid Plus subscription. The Learn mode is limited to a daily cap on the free tier; Plus removes that cap.

Honest limitation: Quizlet is designed for memorising facts and terms, not practising extended arguments. For IB essays and data-response questions, it needs to be paired with a resource that drills actual written responses. For more on using flashcards effectively, see how to use flashcards.

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Building your IB toolkit

More tools is not better. Two or three that you use consistently will serve you better than seven you open once.

A practical approach for most IB students:

• Active daily practice and written-answer feedback: Root (free tier to start, upgrade when you need more usage)
• IB Maths practice: Revision Village (for AA or AI, HL or SL)
• Authentic past papers: IB Questionbank (through your school)
• Notes and topic look-ups: Save My Exams or Kognity (whichever your school provides)
• Foundation gaps in maths or sciences: Khan Academy

The key decision is what sits at the centre of your daily revision: active practice that tests and marks your responses, or reading and watching that keeps you comfortable. The evidence from Dunlosky et al. (2013) is consistent: practice testing produces better long-term retention than passive review, and that gap matters a great deal over a two-year IB course.

For the full IB revision method and how to balance exams with IAs and the Extended Essay, see how to study for IB. For the learning science behind what makes practice effective, active recall and spaced repetition are the most relevant posts. If you want to understand how AI tutors compare to the alternatives more broadly, the AI tutoring guide covers the trade-offs honestly.