IB Chemistry Tutoring, SL and HL
IB Chemistry is organised around Structure and Reactivity, and most marks are lost at the joins between them: a student knows the bonding models but cannot use them to explain a boiling point, or knows the equilibrium rules but slips in the mole arithmetic underneath. The subject rewards students who can calculate and explain in the same answer.
Short answer
IB Chemistry is offered online, one-to-one.
A private lesson runs 90 minutes and starts at USD 95 per lesson; lessons are booked singly or in packages.
IB group classes are private groups of three or more friends, who agree the start date with us.
From USD 95 per lesson
Your lessons are taught by Volkan Demir, who teaches IB Chemistry.
- SL and HL assessment from the IB’s own subject brief
- Live online lessons of 90 minutes
- From USD 95 per lesson
How IB Chemistry is assessed
External papers set and marked by the IB, and an internal assessment marked by your teacher and moderated by the IB. Standard Level and Higher Level differ in length, weighting and, at HL, in the extra paper or component. Figures are from the IB’s own subject brief, linked below.
International Baccalaureate
IB Diploma Programme · Chemistry · subject brief, first assessment 2025
| Component | SL: weight and length | HL: weight and length | What it involves |
|---|---|---|---|
| Paper 1 (1A and 1B) | 36% · 1 hour 30 min | 36% · 2 hours | Paper 1A: multiple-choice questions. Paper 1B: data-based questions and questions on experimental work. |
| Paper 2 | 44% · 1 hour 30 min | 44% · 2 hours 30 min | Short-answer and extended-response questions. |
| Internal assessment | 20% · 10 hours | 20% · 10 hours | Scientific investigation: an open-ended investigation of the student’s own research question, written up as a report of at most 3,000 words. |
Checked on 24 September 2026
Paper names are the IB’s own. Internal assessment time is the teaching time the IB allocates to it, not an exam.
The IB Chemistry syllabus
Topic names are left in English, as they appear on the paper and in the mark scheme.
Structure 1: Models of the particulate nature of matter
Introduction to the particulate nature of matter · The nuclear atom · Electron configurations · Counting particles by mass: the mole · Ideal gases
Structure 2 and 3: Models of bonding and classification of matter
Ionic, covalent and metallic bonding · From models to materials · The periodic table · Functional groups and organic classification
Reactivity 1: What drives chemical reactions?
Measuring enthalpy changes · Energy cycles in reactions · Energy from fuels · Entropy and spontaneity (HL)
Reactivity 2 and 3: How much, how fast, how far — and the mechanisms
Amounts of chemical change · Rates of reaction · Equilibrium · Proton transfer (acids and bases) · Electron transfer (redox) · Electron sharing and electron-pair sharing reactions
Where IB Chemistry marks are usually lost
Mole arithmetic that drifts
Amounts of chemical change run through the whole course, and calculation errors compound: a mass not converted to moles, a limiting reagent not identified, a volume left in cubic centimetres when the concentration is in moles per cubic decimetre. Final answers without units, or with an unreasonable number of significant figures, lose marks on their own. Setting out each step on its own line makes slips visible before they spread.
Explaining with the wrong model
Questions on melting points, boiling points and solubility test whether students choose the right model. Breaking covalent bonds is offered as the reason a simple molecular substance boils, when the answer lies in intermolecular forces; ionic compounds are described as molecules; metals are explained with shared electron pairs. The facts can be right and the explanation still score nothing, because it names the wrong particles or forces.
Experimental questions answered from theory
Paper 1B includes questions on experimental work, and they ask about real procedures: why a reading is uncertain, how heat loss affects a calorimetry result, what a better control would be. Students who answer with textbook theory rather than with what happens on the bench lose marks. Random and systematic errors are often confused, and a percentage uncertainty is calculated but never interpreted.
The IB Chemistry internal assessment
The internal assessment is a scientific investigation into a research question the student formulates, written up as a formal report. In chemistry this is often a titration, calorimetry or rates experiment, and the hazards of the chemicals involved, including how they are disposed of, need thinking through at the design stage. A tutor can help a student choose an investigation whose variables can be controlled with the equipment their school has, work out how to propagate uncertainties and treat anomalous results, and spot a conclusion that claims more than the data support.
A tutor can explain the criteria, question a draft and point to what is weak. The research, the writing and every decision in it stay the student’s own, as the awarding body’s rules require.
How we teach IB Chemistry
A tutor teaches IB Chemistry in the order the ideas depend on each other: particles and the mole first, then the bonding models, then energy, rates and equilibrium, and finally the reaction types — proton transfer, electron transfer and electron sharing. Every lesson includes calculation practice, worked step by step and then timed. Students learn the data booklet early, so they know what it gives them and what they must still remember. Explanations follow a strict pattern — particles, then forces or bonds, then consequence — and are compared against IB mark schemes. Experimental-work questions are tied to practicals the student has actually done, with uncertainties calculated and interpreted. HL students add the HL-only content, such as entropy and spontaneity, and the harder problems that come with it.
There is no separate diagnostic, because there is no single test that stands in for two years of a school syllabus. The first lesson is the assessment: the tutor works through your recent marked work, past-paper questions from your own specification, and the units your school has already covered, and reads current level, gaps, exam technique and where school work stands. It is a normal paid lesson and it teaches as it assesses.
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IB prices
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