Thread: Try...catch...throw or ifs?

I'm still a complete newbie in C++, and i've been wondering... Which is a better way to catch exceptions? using try-catch-throw, or some nested ifs?
Because, at least for me, the try-catch-throw syntax seems really confusing, and I don't see how i could implement it on big functions/classes without making a mess out of my code.

Thanks in advance