IB Mathematics · Online, one-to-one · AA & AI, SL & HL
An IB Math tutor for Zurich families — the same diagnostic rigor, applied every week.
Renzo Diaz is an IB Mathematics tutor based in Milan, teaching one-to-one online across all four courses — Analysis and Approaches and Applications and Interpretation, Standard and Higher Level, in the same Central European time zone as Zurich. His documented results include a Grade 3 to two Grade 7 papers in IB Math AI SL, and 19 Google reviews averaging 4.9 stars — each independently verifiable. Application-only.
Zurich's international-school population is small, highly international, and used to precision — the city runs on finance, pharma and global corporate headquarters, and the families inside that world tend to expect the same standard of evidence from a tutor that they apply in their own professions. A vague "he's improving" does not meet that bar; a specific, checkable diagnosis does.
Many of the students I work with think across more than one language day to day. That is not a disadvantage to correct — it is simply the environment the method is built to work inside, the same way it works for a monolingual student: locate the exact step where the reasoning broke, in whichever language the student thinks in, and rebuild from there. Zurich's IB World Schools — Zurich International School and Inter-Community School Zürich among them — sit the same syllabus, so the diagnostic applies the same way regardless of which one your child attends.
The unexplained Grade 4: the report says it, nobody can say why.
School reports record outcomes, not causes: a grade, a comment, occasionally a remark about attention. Before any plan is built, I diagnose the exact step where the reasoning broke — whether that step lives in this term's topic or three years back in algebra. That diagnosis, not the report card, is what the weekly work runs on.
AA or AI, SL or HL: the choice, made with half the information.
International schools ask families to commit to a Math course and level while the student has never sat a real IB paper. The choice shapes university options across Switzerland, the UK and further afield, and is expensive to reverse mid-Diploma. I walk families through both courses with real exam questions before the school deadline, including what each university faculty actually requires.
Mid-Diploma transfer: arrived from another curriculum, partway through.
Zurich absorbs a steady flow of relocating families, and a student arriving mid-Diploma from a different curriculum — or a different IB school — inherits the Diploma clock with gaps shaped by whatever they studied before. The first month is structural triage: find where the previous curriculum left holes, rebuild those, and align to the new school's assessment calendar from the next mock onward.
The high-expectations plateau: the effort is real, the standard is high, and the grade won't move.
In a cohort where the baseline is already strong, a plateau rarely means a student is behind — it means the remaining gap is narrow and specific: a proof habit, a pacing issue, a method chosen a few seconds too slowly. Closing a narrow gap takes a more precise diagnosis than closing a wide one, not more hours of the same practice.
Coverage
All four IB Maths courses. Find the one your child is sitting.
AA and AI are different subjects wearing the same name, and SL and HL are different workloads again. Each has its own page with the situations, syllabus coverage and exam technique specific to it.
What's actually examined
The exam your child is sitting.
AA HL and AI SL are examined differently — knowing the real structure changes how the weekly work is built. Figures below cover AA HL (the most demanding of the four courses) and AI SL (the course in the documented Grade 3→7 case); AA SL and AI HL sit between them and have their own dedicated pages.
| Paper | Duration | Marks | Weight | What it tests |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AA HL Paper 1 | 120 minutes, no calculator | 110 marks | 30% | Pure algebraic fluency under time pressure. |
| AA HL Paper 2 | 120 minutes, calculator allowed | 110 marks | 30% | Application and modelling. |
| AA HL Paper 3 | 60 minutes, calculator allowed | 55 marks | 20% | Two extended investigative questions, unfamiliar scaffolding. |
| AI SL Paper 1 | 90 minutes, calculator allowed | 80 marks | 40% | Short-response questions. |
| AI SL Paper 2 | 90 minutes, calculator allowed | 80 marks | 40% | Extended-response questions. |
| Internal Assessment (both courses) | Across the two-year Diploma | Marked on 5 criteria | 20% | Mathematical exploration, student-chosen topic. |
The method
A documented weekly system — the same one, wherever your child studies.
Every week opens with last week's wrong answers, because wrong answers are the cheapest source of marks. We work on what is live from school, advance the syllabus in order, and hold the same rhythm through mock weeks, IA deadlines and report cycles. Every session is recorded, summarised, and archived into a searchable library your child keeps for the entire Diploma — so revision two weeks before an exam means searching a library of their own confusions, not scrolling a stranger's video for the same topic.
Documented, public on Google
The same evidence standard, wherever the student is based.
The method does not depend on geography — it depends on rhythm. The weekly system runs the same everywhere: diagnose, rebuild, drill against real exam questions, record everything.
The clearest documented case is a student who moved from a Grade 3 to two Grade 7 papers across a full two-year Diploma, in IB Math AI SL — delivered entirely online. It is a public Google review on the Business Profile, one of 19 reviews averaging 4.9 stars. Open the profile and read them yourself; none of it depends on taking my word for it.
Real admission requirements
Where the IB score actually leads.
The IB score isn't the only thing universities look at — but for competitive Mathematics, Physics and Engineering courses, it's the threshold that gets an application read. The AA/AI choice matters more at some of these than families are usually told.
| University | Requirement | Note |
|---|---|---|
| University of Oxford | Typically 39-40 points, HL pattern around 7-6-6 | AA HL is strongly preferred over AI for Mathematics and Engineering — AI is a real disadvantage here, not a neutral alternative. |
| University of Cambridge | 41-42 points, 7-7-6 at Higher Level | Engineering requires AA HL specifically — AI HL is not accepted — plus 7 in Physics or Chemistry HL. |
| Imperial College London | Minimum 40 points with 6 in Math HL and 6 in Physics HL; competitive offers run 7 and 7 | AA is preferred over AI, though both are formally accepted. |
| ETH Zurich | 38 out of 42 points, excluding Core bonus points | Requires HL Math plus one HL science — Physics, Chemistry or Biology, not Physics specifically. Math AA HL is preferred for STEM. |
Related pages
Ready to see if this is the right fit for your child?
Two free conversations come before anyone commits to anything. If I don't think the system will move your child meaningfully, I will tell you directly — I'd rather lose a client than take on a case I can't help.