IB Diploma Programme sciences
IB DP Chemistry tutoring at Edunest pairs a student in Qatar with a tutor who teaches the current IB guide, first examined in 2025 and organised around Structure and Reactivity. Every lesson is live and online, tutor and student one to one. Each topic is tied to Paper 1B's data questions and to the internal assessment.
Whether your child is in DP1 or DP2, the need might be firmer moles and bonding, a stubborn HL topic such as buffers, or a workable investigation question.
What we cover
The guide sorts chemistry under two ideas: structure, the nature of matter, and reactivity, how and why reactions happen. HL adds depth inside the same six topics.
SL is planned as a 150-hour course and HL as a 240-hour one; 40 and 60 of those hours cover lab practicals, the investigation and the collaborative sciences project.
Atoms, electron configurations, the mole and ideal gases. Mole work feeds every later topic, and marks slip on units, significant figures and converting between mass, volume and concentration.
Ionic, covalent and metallic models, VSEPR shapes, intermolecular forces and polymers. HL adds formal charge, sigma and pi bonds and hybridisation. A polar bond is often confused with a polar molecule.
Periodic trends, oxidation states, functional groups and IUPAC names. At HL it also holds transition elements, stereoisomers and spectroscopy: mass spectra, infrared and 1H NMR.
Calorimetry, Hess's law, bond enthalpies and fuels. HL adds Born-Haber cycles, entropy and Gibbs energy. Heat-loss assumptions in calorimetry cost marks on both papers.
Yield and atom economy, rates and collision theory, equilibrium and Le Châtelier's principle. HL adds rate equations, the Arrhenius equation and calculations with K and Q. Graph reading decides many marks.
Proton transfer, electron transfer, radicals, nucleophiles and electrophiles. The largest HL topic adds pKa, buffers, electrode potentials and SN1 and SN2. Curly arrows lose marks when drawn from the wrong atom.
Experimental techniques, technology and mathematics, used to design, collect and process data, conclude and evaluate. These skills carry Paper 1B and shape the investigation.
How lessons run
Chemistry is learnt by solving problems, so each lesson ends with your child working IB-style questions as the tutor follows the reasoning.
Step 1
In the opening lessons your child talks through a mole calculation, a Lewis formula and a reaction mechanism. The reasoning shows whether errors come from the chemistry, the mathematics or misreading the question.
Step 2
The IB encourages teachers to plan their own route through the Structure and Reactivity topics. Your child's class order and test dates set the plan, so each lesson prepares for the chemistry taught next.
Step 3
On a shared whiteboard the tutor builds orbital diagrams, energy profiles and curly arrows step by step, then hands over an unfamiliar graph or data table, the raw material of Paper 1B.
Step 4
Short timed sets of multiple-choice and structured questions show whether a topic has settled. Answers are marked against command terms such as outline, explain and evaluate, which signal the depth required.
Step 5
Chemistry lessons slot into school evenings, Sunday to Thursday, or into Friday and Saturday, all set in Doha time (UTC+3). During Ramadan, times shift to match the hours announced that year.
Parents are welcome in any lesson, and short written notes on progress come to the family.
The exam
Two written papers at the end of DP2 decide 80% of the chemistry grade. The other 20% comes from the scientific investigation, which your child's teacher marks before IB moderation.
Exam board
International Baccalaureate (IB)
Writes and marks the papers, moderates the teacher-marked investigation and awards each course grade on the 7 to 1 scale.
Thirty multiple-choice items, then questions built on data and practical work.
How a tutor helps
Wrong answers in 1A cost nothing, so the tutor trains quick elimination and sensible guessing. For 1B, your child learns to read axes, units and uncertainty before writing.
Forty multiple-choice items on SL and HL content, then data and practical questions.
How a tutor helps
HL multiple choice rewards speed on calculations. The tutor sets timed blocks, reviews why each wrong option looked tempting, and saves time for the data questions that follow.
Structured questions with short and longer written answers on SL chemistry.
How a tutor helps
About half of each paper's marks test analysis and evaluation. The tutor practises explanations that name the particle, force or energy change, and calculations where clear working earns credit.
Short and longer written answers across SL chemistry and the HL extension.
How a tutor helps
The long HL paper needs stamina across mechanisms, electrochemistry and equilibrium. The tutor builds up to full timed papers, noting where concentration dips and time runs short.
A written report, 3,000 words at most, on a research question your child frames.
How a tutor helps
Coaching covers turning an idea into a focused question, choosing a method the school lab can run and handling uncertainties. The report stays your child's own work, as the IB requires.
Final papers fall in one of the IB's twice-yearly sessions, May or November, and your child's school registers its DP candidates for one of them. Revision is planned backwards from that session.
The IB grades Chemistry on a seven-point scale, 7 being the best. A 6 at SL earns as many diploma points as a 6 at HL, and both levels share one set of grade descriptors.
What we look for in a tutor
Each tutor meets these standards before teaching an IB Chemistry student.
A degree-level command of physical, organic and inorganic chemistry, enough to explain why a model works and where it stops working.
Teaches from the Structure and Reactivity guide first examined in 2025, including additional HL content and the tools and inquiry skills.
Has prepared students for IB papers and understands command terms, markscheme expectations and the four criteria of the internal assessment.
Breaks a hard idea into small steps, checks understanding with questions, and keeps technical terms in the language your child is examined in.
Follows safeguarding practice for teenagers taught online, welcomes a parent into lessons and keeps contact within agreed family channels.
Sends short progress notes naming the topics worked on, the gains made and the next focus, in plain words a busy family can read.
Common difficulties
Common sticking points in DP Chemistry, with what a tutor does about each one.
Why it happens
Slips come from units, rearranging equations or rounding too early, and each slip repeats wherever moles appear.
How a tutor helps
Your child sets out every calculation in one fixed order: equation, known values with units, rearrangement, then an answer to sensible significant figures. The routine removes careless errors.
Why it happens
Markschemes look for specific language: which particles, which forces, which energy change, linked by cause and effect.
How a tutor helps
The tutor models full answers to explain and outline questions, then asks your child to rewrite weak answers until every link in the argument appears on the page.
Why it happens
A mechanism makes sense once electron movement is understood; a memorised diagram falls apart on an unfamiliar molecule.
How a tutor helps
Lessons start from where the electron pair sits and where it can go. Your child draws nucleophilic substitution and electrophilic addition from scratch, explaining every arrow aloud.
Why it happens
They often place an experiment in an unfamiliar context, so they test reading a method and its data.
How a tutor helps
Lessons keep bringing new data sets with the same four questions: what was measured, what was changed, how large is the uncertainty, what does the trend show.
Why it happens
A strong question needs a measurable variable, a method the school laboratory or a database can support, and enough data.
How a tutor helps
The tutor helps your child test ideas against the four criteria and narrow a broad interest into a focused question; the choice and the writing remain your child's own.
Why it happens
Additional HL content sits inside every topic, so a gap in an SL foundation widens quickly at HL.
How a tutor helps
The tutor secures the SL idea first, then adds the HL layer, for example moving from pH to buffers and pKa, so new content rests on firm ground.
Questions learners and parents ask
Tell us where your child stands in chemistry, the school and the target grade; someone from Edunest will reply with a suited tutor.