The November 2026 Diploma Programme session runs from Friday 23 October to Friday 13 November, with results expected around 16 December. Sixteen examination days, no scheduled break day in the middle, and papers grouped by subject group rather than spread comfortably.
Confirm your own dates against the official IB exam schedule — your school issues a personalised timetable, and the zone you sit in affects times.
Quick answer
– The November 2026 session runs 23 October to 13 November, with results expected around 16 December.
– Coursework is submitted, so the only marks still moving are the papers.
– Most lost marks come from command terms, missing method or the wrong answer format — all fixable in a fortnight.
What makes the November session different
Confirm every date against the official IB exam schedule and your school’s personalised timetable. For the revision itself, the method that moves marks fastest is answering past questions from memory and marking them against the markscheme — our study techniques guide covers why, and the three-week structure works the same way for mocks.
Students in the May session get a long run-up through the second half of the year. November candidates get the opposite: a compressed three-week session sitting right at the end of the school year, with coursework deadlines already behind them.
Two consequences worth planning around:
- Papers come thick and fast. You may have two papers in a day and three in a subject inside a week. Recovery time between exams is short, so the plan has to be built around your personal timetable rather than a generic one.
- Internal assessments are done. Whatever your IA and TOK essay scored, they’re submitted. The only marks still moving are the papers, so that’s where every remaining hour goes.
The last three weeks
Work backwards from the timetable rather than through your subjects in order. Our revision timetable guide has the four-step build, and study techniques covers what to actually do inside a block once it’s scheduled.
Whatever your IA and TOK essay scored, they’re submitted. Every remaining hour belongs to the papers.
Week one: diagnose
Sit one past paper per subject you’re most worried about, timed, closed book. Then mark it against the markscheme rather than against your own sense of how it went.
IB markschemes are unusually explicit about where marks come from, and most lost marks come from one of three places: the command term was ignored, working wasn’t shown, or the answer was correct but not in the form the question asked for. None of those are knowledge problems. They’re all fixable in a fortnight.
Keep a miss list per subject as you go.
Week two: fix the specific things
Work the list, hardest first, in ninety-minute blocks with one subject each.
Spend one session per subject purely on command terms — “evaluate” and “discuss” are not interchangeable, and HL papers punish treating them as if they are. For the sciences, rehearse the data-based question format specifically. For maths, work on presentation of method, since method marks survive an arithmetic slip and a bare wrong answer doesn’t.
Week three: rehearse
One full paper per major subject, under exam conditions, at the time of day the real paper sits. Then taper: light review, familiar material, early nights.
By the Thursday before your first exam you should be doing almost nothing new.
Getting through the session itself
- Plan by gaps. Look at your timetable and mark which subjects you’ll revise during the session. Anything sitting in week three doesn’t need to be finished before the session starts.
- Leave each paper behind. Post-mortems with friends between papers are corrosive and change nothing.
- Sleep on the schedule. Your brain should be awake at the hour your papers start.
- Eat and move. Three weeks is long enough for the basics to matter.
Put every paper into MyStudyLife as an exam with its date, time and room, and your revision blocks as tasks against each subject, so the whole session sits in one place next to your daily schedule.
Results, and what happens after
November results come out around 16 December through the candidate results site, using the code your school gives you. Grades run 1–7 per subject, with up to three points from TOK and the extended essay, for a maximum of 45. Twenty-four points is the minimum for the diploma, subject to the failing conditions on HL and SL grades.
If something goes wrong, there are two routes worth knowing about:
Enquiry upon results. Your school can request a remark. Grades can go down as well as up, and there are deadlines in the weeks after results.
Retakes. You can retake subjects in a later session, up to three sessions in total. Most students retaking November papers do so in May, which gives about five months.
University applications are the other half of this. UK offers through UCAS are usually conditional on points and specific HL grades, so read your offer carefully rather than remembering it. Our university advice section covers the admissions side in more depth.
Subject-specific things worth knowing
Sciences. Paper 3 and the data-based questions reward practice with unfamiliar experiments rather than more content revision. Work through past data questions specifically; the skill transfers.
Maths. Method marks survive arithmetic slips. Write every step, even where you can do it in your head, and especially where you can.
Languages. Speaking is already done. What’s left is the written papers, so read widely in the target language rather than grinding vocabulary lists in isolation.
Humanities. Command terms decide grade bands. An “evaluate” question answered as a “describe” question has a ceiling no amount of content knowledge lifts.
TOK and the extended essay. Submitted, and worth up to three points. Nothing you do now changes them, which is a reason to stop thinking about them.
Managing three weeks of papers
Sixteen examination days is long enough that pacing matters more than intensity.
Plan by the gaps. Look at your personal timetable and split subjects into “before the session” and “during the session”. A paper on 11 November does not need to be finished before 23 October, and treating it as if it does costs you time the early subjects need.
Keep one routine across the whole session. Same wake time, same meals, same finish time in the evening. Three weeks of improvised days is exhausting in a way that a fixed routine isn’t.
Protect the day before each paper. Light review only, and an early night. The urge to cram the evening before is strongest and least productive on the papers you care most about.
In short
Diagnose with one past paper per weak subject, fix the miss list, then rehearse under exam conditions. Keep one routine across all three weeks, revise late subjects during the session, and leave each paper behind the moment you’ve sat it.
FAQ
When are the IB November 2026 exams?
The session runs from 23 October to 13 November 2026. Your subject dates depend on your personalised timetable, which your school issues.
When do November 2026 IB results come out?
Around 16 December 2026. The IB confirms the exact date closer to the session.
How many hours a day should I revise for IB exams?
Three to four hours of focused work on a study day, in blocks with real breaks. More than that for three straight weeks is rarely sustainable, and past papers beat rereading at any volume.
Are November papers easier than May papers?
No. They’re different papers with their own markschemes and grade boundaries, set to the same standard.
What happens if I miss an exam?
Tell your coordinator immediately. There is a process for missed papers in genuine circumstances, but it runs through the school and has tight deadlines.
Can I retake just one subject?
Yes. You can retake individual subjects in a later session, and your best result stands, within the three-session limit.
