How to Get a 7 in IB Chemistry (New Syllabus Guide)

Quick answer

• Learn the course as the IB organises it: Structure 1 to 3 and Reactivity 1 to 3, 22 subtopics at HL (21 at SL).
• Train for the three exam sections separately: Paper 1A (multiple choice), Paper 1B (data and experiments) and Paper 2 (short and extended answers).
• Read the command term first. "Suggest" and "Explain" want reasoning, not a fact.
• Plan the IA around its four criteria. Half its 24 marks are for Conclusion and Evaluation.
• Revise by testing yourself and coming back to old topics, not by rereading notes.

To get a 7 in IB Chemistry, know how the new course is built and what each paper rewards. Answer at the depth the command term asks for, show every step of a calculation, and use the data booklet fluently. Then put serious effort into the Conclusion and Evaluation of your IA, and revise by testing yourself on old topics.

Plenty of students who end on a 6 know their chemistry. They lose the 7 on precision: a vague explanation, a missing step, an IA that describes its results instead of judging them. This guide covers the course as it is now (first assessed in May 2025), because a lot of advice online still describes the old syllabus with options and a Paper 3.

How the new IB Chemistry syllabus is organised

The course is built on two ideas, structure and reactivity, linked by the line that "structure determines reactivity, which in turn transforms structure" (IB Chemistry course page). There are three Structure topics and three Reactivity topics. The hours below are the IB's recommended teaching hours from the Chemistry subject brief.

Two things in that table catch students out. First, kinetics is not its own topic any more: rates sit in Reactivity 2, next to stoichiometry and equilibrium. Second, Reactivity 3 is the biggest block at both levels, and at HL it is almost double its SL size. If you are HL and organic mechanisms feel shaky, that is where your hours should go.

The IB also says the new course has less content and more emphasis on concepts and connections (IB Chemistry updates). In practice, a Paper 2 question can start with bonding and finish with equilibrium. Revising each topic in its own box leaves you exposed.

What each paper rewards

Every student sits two exams. The option topics and Paper 3 are gone, and some option content was folded into the main course. Here is the structure, with mark totals from the IB's own specimen papers for the new course:

Every specimen paper says a calculator and "a clean copy of the chemistry data booklet" are required. Specimen questions point you to numbered sections of the booklet ("using section 20 of the data booklet"), so finding things in it quickly is a real exam skill. Revise with it open every time.

Paper 1A punishes half-learned facts. One misremembered detail and the plausible wrong option looks right. Short, frequent self-testing is the fix.

Paper 1B is the easiest section to under-prepare for. It tests whether you can read an unfamiliar experiment: spot the trend, process the numbers, find the weakness in the method. You cannot memorise your way through it, so practise it as a separate skill, using the specimen paper and your school's past papers from 2025 onwards. In the specimen papers, "Suggest" is the most used command term overall, mostly in Paper 1B's experimental questions, so expect to reason about methods you have never seen.

Paper 2 carries the most weight and rewards explanation. In the IB's specimen Paper 2s, "Determine" and "Explain" are the most used command terms: one wants a worked answer, the other wants reasoning. A bare fact earns little. Our guide to IB exam technique covers command terms across all subjects.

A worked example: from a weak answer to full marks

Take a typical 2-mark question: Explain why increasing the temperature increases the rate of a reaction.

A weak answer: "The particles have more energy, so they react faster." That repeats the question in other words.

A strong answer makes two separate, chemically precise points:

1. At a higher temperature, a greater proportion of particles have energy equal to or greater than the activation energy (you can show this on a Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution).
2. So a greater proportion of collisions are successful, the frequency of successful collisions rises, and the rate increases.

Notice what changed. The strong answer names the activation energy and talks about the proportion of particles, which is the main reason rate rises. It also links cause to effect with "so". Two marks, two clear points, no padding.

Calculations work the same way. Write the equation, substitute with units, then give the answer to sensible significant figures. If you slip on the arithmetic, shown working can still earn method marks. A bare wrong number earns nothing.

The IA: where a 6 becomes a 7

The scientific investigation is marked on four criteria, each worth 6 marks, for 24 in total: Research Design, Data Analysis, Conclusion and Evaluation (RevisionDojo's criteria guide; Clastify's assessment breakdown). The IB itself says the revised criteria put "50% of the marks" on Conclusion and Evaluation (IB Chemistry updates).

Some rough arithmetic shows why this matters. The IA is 20% of your grade spread over 24 marks, so each IA mark is worth about 0.83% of your final result. On HL Paper 2, 90 marks share 44%, so each exam mark is worth about 0.49%. One extra IA mark is worth roughly as much as 1.7 marks on HL Paper 2. Conclusion and Evaluation alone are 10% of your whole Chemistry grade.

What each criterion wants, in plain terms:

• Research Design: a focused question in a clear chemical context, with the method and its choices explained well enough that someone could repeat it. "How does temperature affect rate?" is too broad. Name the reaction, the range and how you will measure the rate.
• Data Analysis: raw data with units and uncertainties, processing shown with at least one worked example, and graphs that actually answer your question.
• Conclusion: answer your question directly, using your processed numbers, and compare your result with accepted chemistry or literature values.
• Evaluation: name specific weaknesses, explain how each one affected your data, and propose a realistic improvement for each. "More repeats would make it more accurate" is not an evaluation.

One change helps you: you may now work with classmates in small groups and share a similar method, as long as the independent or dependent variable differs and your data is your own. You still write your own report, capped at 3,000 words. For the wider process, from choosing a question to meeting deadlines, read our IB internal assessment tips.

How to revise IB Chemistry for a 7

The best-supported study methods are also the ones that feel hardest. In a large review of ten techniques, Dunlosky and colleagues rated practice testing and distributed practice (spreading study out over time) as "high utility", and rated rereading and highlighting as "low utility" (Dunlosky et al., 2013). Roediger and Karpicke found that students who tested themselves remembered substantially more a week later than students who reread the same material, even though the rereaders felt more confident (Roediger and Karpicke, 2006).

Here is what that looks like for Chemistry:

1. Use the subtopic list (22 at HL, 21 at SL) as your checklist. For each one, close your notes and write what you know: definitions, a labelled diagram, one typical calculation. Then check, and mark what you missed. Our guide to active recall explains the method.
2. Come back on a schedule. Structure 1 learned in September will be patchy by March unless you revisit it. Put old subtopics back into your week at growing gaps. Spaced repetition shows how.
3. Mix your calculation practice. Do a set that jumps between moles, enthalpy, equilibrium and pH, so you practise choosing the method as well as using it. Dunlosky's review rated this kind of interleaved practice "moderate utility": promising, with less evidence behind it than self-testing.
4. Do papers under timed conditions, then mark them properly. Use the mark scheme, not your own sense of "close enough". For each lost mark, write down why: content gap, command term, missing step or a slow search through the data booklet. Our guide on how to use past papers has a full routine.

Doing this properly means tracking more than 20 subtopics, remembering which calculations keep going wrong and re-marking your own answers every week, on top of five other subjects. Root Tutor is an AI tutor and study system built for the IB by an IB student: drop in your syllabus and it pulls out the topics, keeps your notes and files for each class in units, and teaches step by step. Revision mode checks what you still remember and sorts your topics into Remembered, Shaky and Not yet, while Test prep builds practice papers in your exam's style and marks them like an examiner against a mark scheme (2 a week on the free plan). Here is what Root actually does, and if it sounds useful, you can start free with no card.

Common reasons students miss the 7

Revising from the old syllabus. Materials organised around options, Paper 3 or the old numbered topics will waste your time on structure that no longer exists. Check that a resource says "first assessment 2025".

Treating Paper 1B as an afterthought. It is part of the 36% and it tests skills, not recall. Give it its own practice sessions.

Describing when the question says explain. Underline the command term before you write. Ask yourself whether your answer says why.

Leaving the IA's last two criteria until the end. Half the marks sit there. Plan the time for analysis and evaluation before you start collecting data.

Letting Year 1 fade. Structure topics underpin everything in Reactivity. If they slip, every later topic gets harder.

For the habits that apply across all six subjects, read how to get a 7 in IB.