Your child downloads Gigabytes of free IB and IGCSE material in August. 

By October, most is untouched.

The irony is that most valuable resources are free. Past papers, mark schemes, examiner reports, official syllabi. Most paid courses just repackage these.

So the real question isn't what to download.

It's what free material can't do and what that gap costs.

What Actually Counts as a Good Study Resource for IB and IGCSE

Before your child invests time in a study resource, it needs to pass 3 tests. Most resources circulating in school WhatsApp groups fail at least one.

Test one. Is it mapped to your exact syllabus code and exam session?

Cambridge IGCSE Chemistry 0620 and 0971 aren't the same. IB Mathematics AA and AI aren't the same. A resource without a named code is a guess.

Test two. Is it current?

Syllabuses change. A brilliant resource built for a retired syllabus teaches content that's no longer examined.

Test three. Does it mark the work, or only show the answer?

Recognition is not recall, and the exam tests recall under time pressure.

Two of those three tests can be cleared for free. Here is how.

Free Study Resources - What Works, Where It Stops, & What It Costs

Start Here: Past Papers, Mark Schemes, and Essential Tools

Past papers and mark schemes work best when your child reads the mark scheme first after attempting a question, then marks their own answer line by line. 

The point isn't the score, it's discovering they lost marks for skipping a step they thought was obvious.

Examiner reports are the most underused free resource in any curriculum. Every session, examiners document what candidates got wrong, which distractors they fell for, and which command terms they misread. Your school can pull these from the Cambridge portal; IB reports come through your coordinator.

The syllabus document and IB command term glossary are essential. Your child needs to know what a 7 looks like versus a 5, and that "evaluate," "discuss," and "justify" require structurally different answers. Students lose marks on content they know because they answered the wrong verb.

GeoGebra and Desmos are free tools and genuinely excellent for graphing work and calculator skills. A spaced repetition app (free versions work) handles formulae, definitions, and terminology - not method. 

Check whether your school already has a paid subscription most parents don't know about.

That stack costs nothing and covers most of what Grade 9 and MYP students need. The trouble starts in Years 10–11 and the Diploma Programme.

…where Free Resources Stop Working

Free material cannot do coursework or mark your child's writing. Those two things decide a large part of the final grade.

The IB Internal Assessment, Extended Essay, and Theory of Knowledge cannot be downloaded. The research question, data, and marking are all individual; there is no PDF for this, which is precisely why IB families feel stranded. 

The same is true of IGCSE practicals. You cannot learn practical techniques from a video. That trained reflex comes from doing paper after paper with someone who corrects the reasoning.

The real ceiling is marking. Free resources show the answer; they don't tell your child whether their answer would have scored. A student can complete twenty past papers alone and consolidate the same 3 errors 20 times.

There is a second cost to a free only approach, and for most families it is larger than the first.

…the Hidden Cost in Wrong Revision

For a family weighing cost, the relevant number here is not money. It is hours.

The Education Endowment Foundation, reviewing 125 studies, found that 1-on-1 tuition delivers an average of 5 months of additional academic progress over standard classroom instruction.

Now, The One Question to Ask That Matters

Ask for a subscription, a notes bundle, a course, or a tutor, including this one: what will this tell me about my child that I do not already know?

If the honest answer is "nothing, it just delivers the syllabus again", your child already has that for free. 

A second explanation of photosynthesis is not the missing piece. 

Knowing that the actual problem is a Grade 8 gap in balancing equations is.

That is the only thing worth paying for, and it is also the thing free material structurally cannot provide, because free material does not know your child.

This is where diagnosis and continuity change everything.

One Tutor, Diagnosed Gap, Measurable Progress

Stripped of marketing, with Mentor Match your child gets 1 expert tutor, matched to their exact curriculum, who stays with them from the free trial to the final exam.

Good tutoring isn't just curriculum matched, it's a tutor who knows your child well enough to teach around what interests them. 

Live, 1-on-1 online. Not group classes, not recordings, not a marketplace where the tutor changes each week. 

Tutors are selected from the top 1.3% of applicants, through a subject test, a live teaching simulation and a 2 week training programme before they meet a single student. 

Does it work? 87% of students see grades improve within four weeks. 

Students come from schools including Dhirubhai Ambani International, Oberoi International, The International School Bangalore, CHIREC, Indus International, Stonehill International and Pathways Noida.

Start with the free resources above. 

They are genuinely good and they cost nothing. 

Then book a free trial class, run the diagnostic and find out which two or three topics are actually holding the grade down. 

As a Back to School period, Mentor Match is offering 25% off all tutoring packages. The trial costs nothing and commits you to nothing; there is no lock in, and unused sessions are refunded within 48 hours.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the best free study resources for IB and IGCSE students in India?

Past papers, mark schemes, examiner reports, the current syllabus document with its grade descriptors, and the IB command term glossary. For Mathematics, GeoGebra and Desmos are free and cover the graphing and calculator skills both curricula assume. Check your school's existing digital subscription before buying anything.

Are paid IB and IGCSE study resources worth it?

Only if they tell you something free material cannot. A second explanation of a topic your child already has notes on adds little. A diagnostic that identifies the specific concept causing the problem, and teaching aimed at that concept, is what changes the grade.

How much does IB and IGCSE tutoring cost in India?

Live one to one tutoring runs between INR 910 and 2,100 per hour. Mentor Match is currently running a back to school offer of flat 25% off all tutoring packages, and the trial class is free.

Can my child prepare for the IB Internal Assessment or the IGCSE Alternative to Practical using free resources?

Only partly. The IA and Extended Essay are personal pieces of research marked against criteria, so there is no downloadable version. The Alternative to Practical tests experimental reasoning, which is built by working through papers with someone correcting the method. Both are the parts most tutoring platforms skip.

How quickly do grades improve with one to one support?

The average time to first improvement is four weeks, and 87% of students see their grades go up. Improvement shows in mock test scores before it appears on a school report.

Is one to one tutoring better than self study with free materials?

For closing a specific gap, yes. Self study works well for content revision when a student already knows what to revise. The Education Endowment Foundation, across 125 studies, found one to one tuition delivers around five months of additional academic progress compared with standard classroom instruction.

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