Some advice for a noob?

[sjhingran]

I'm the first out of my family and friends to do IB so everything is very new to me.

I just wan't to know what it's like and whether I've made the right choice in doing IB, or whether the HSC is more suited to me. (I'm from Australia)

The subjects I am planning to do are HL English, HL Biology, HL Economics, SL Latin, SL Maths and SL Chemistry. 

I'm aiming to get a 45 and study Medicine at the University of Sydney (which I know don't really take UMAT that far into consideration)

What type of person/learner is suited to IB?

Generally, I'm a memorising type of learner (everything needs to be seared in my mind for me to understand it), a bit of a stress ball and I prefer an assignment over an exam any day. 
Keeping this informal and chill lol, what do you all think?

Tell me anything and everything about the IB because at the moment I can't even pronounce Baccalaureate

Thanks!

[Maha]

I do not think that IB is very easy, remember you have extended essay, TOK, CAS, they need time. Therefore it is not just about 6 subjects. You have many assignment , internal assessment. 

I think in IB you need to understand things, even in history, and you need to be critical in some subjects in order to achieve high score.

 I recommend you to read the IB-learner profile.  

[King112]

Hi.

First up, a 45 is ****ING hard! Like really, set a slightly more realistic goal. Not to discourage you or anything, but it is extremely hard. That said, its my opinion that IB is meant for a lot of different learning styles. You need to be hard working, no question. The assignments and stuff is taxing, you need to work hard. In addition, you need to keep procrastination levels in check so that you don't procrastinate to a crazy level. Next, I'm not sure what you mean by assignment, but if you mean essays and stuff, I want you to know that you can (and most likely, like 99% will) get essay exams. Now what do you call that, I don't know. At the same time, IB gives you enough chances to redeem yourself. For example: You mess up a test, but do damn well on your IA, your grade gets better. QED. Plus, in my opinion, IB is manageable provided you don't procrastinate too much. You get long deadlines, so your CAS and stuff is fitted in. Eg: I got like about 3-4 weeks for my Econ IA. I work out at the gym for like an hour and a half everyday (except Saturday and Sunday) and get 8 hours of sleep. My grades are decent right now, not the best, but not bad either. So, yeah, I think IB is doable. In addition, like Maha said, you need to critically reason and stuff. You will be given examples and stuff in class, but you need to be able to analyse. 

And don't worry, I haven't even said "Baccalaureate" out loud yet (and I misspell it every time). Your subjects seem pretty cool. I take Econ HL, English Lang Lit HL and Math SL. Math SL is really just practice. Pay attention in class so you understand the concept, and then practice, practice, practice. Econ is more analytical, and needs you to understand various concepts and math formulas and stuff. English needs work. Speaking, and writing are crucial here. They literally make or break your grade. Plus, analysis as well (albeit, in a way different from Econ). 
So in conclusion, I think IB is manageable, though really a 45 is REALLY REALLY Hard. Not discouraging you, but that's the truth. A lot of hard work and dedication is needed.

So hope this helps you, and let me know if you have any more questions.

King112

Edited March 30, 2015 by King112

[sjhingran]

I do not think that IB is very easy, remember you have extended essay, TOK, CAS, they need time. Therefore it is not just about 6 subjects. You have many assignment , internal assessment. 

I think in IB you need to understand things, even in history, and you need to be critical in some subjects in order to achieve high score.

 I recommend you to read the IB-learner profile.

 

Thank you! I had a read through the IB Learner Profile and it seems like they are really asking for a lot! I also read up a bit on the Extended Essay, what would you recommend is a good subject to write the Essay on?

[sjhingran]

Hi.

First up, a 45 is ****ING hard! Like really, set a slightly more realistic goal. Not to discourage you or anything, but it is extremely hard. That said, its my opinion that IB is meant for a lot of different learning styles. You need to be hard working, no question. The assignments and stuff is taxing, you need to work hard. In addition, you need to keep procrastination levels in check so that you don't procrastinate to a crazy level. Next, I'm not sure what you mean by assignment, but if you mean essays and stuff, I want you to know that you can (and most likely, like 99% will) get essay exams. Now what do you call that, I don't know. At the same time, IB gives you enough chances to redeem yourself. For example: You mess up a test, but do damn well on your IA, your grade gets better. QED. Plus, in my opinion, IB is manageable provided you don't procrastinate too much. You get long deadlines, so your CAS and stuff is fitted in. Eg: I got like about 3-4 weeks for my Econ IA. I work out at the gym for like an hour and a half everyday (except Saturday and Sunday) and get 8 hours of sleep. My grades are decent right now, not the best, but not bad either. So, yeah, I think IB is doable. In addition, like Maha said, you need to critically reason and stuff. You will be given examples and stuff in class, but you need to be able to analyse. 

And don't worry, I haven't even said "Baccalaureate" out loud yet (and I misspell it every time). Your subjects seem pretty cool. I take Econ HL, English Lang Lit HL and Math SL. Math SL is really just practice. Pay attention in class so you understand the concept, and then practice, practice, practice. Econ is more analytical, and needs you to understand various concepts and math formulas and stuff. English needs work. Speaking, and writing are crucial here. They literally make or break your grade. Plus, analysis as well (albeit, in a way different from Econ). 

So in conclusion, I think IB is manageable, though really a 45 is REALLY REALLY Hard. Not discouraging you, but that's the truth. A lot of hard work and dedication is needed.

So hope this helps you, and let me know if you have any more questions.

King112

Thanks for the thorough response, just what I needed  

I am well aware that getting a 45 is REALLY hard, but at my school a fifth of our IB cohort did last year (9 perfect scores). Our school seems to have the whole IB curriculum down pat so I'm trusting that a combination of that and my hard work will let me reach my goal. Thanks for the information on the subjects. Do you think that my current subject selection choice is good? I really enjoy the sciences and they'll probably help with me medicine too so that's why I'm taking two.

Lucky for me, I tend to get things done as soon as possible, not an avid procrastinator! Phew! Don't like leaving things to last minute - too much stress.

Well, thanks for the help!

[Maha]

 

I do not think that IB is very easy, remember you have extended essay, TOK, CAS, they need time. Therefore it is not just about 6 subjects. You have many assignment , internal assessment. 

I think in IB you need to understand things, even in history, and you need to be critical in some subjects in order to achieve high score.

 I recommend you to read the IB-learner profile.

 

Thank you! I had a read through the IB Learner Profile and it seems like they are really asking for a lot! I also read up a bit on the Extended Essay, what would you recommend is a good subject to write the Essay on?

 

I wrote mine in History, I feel group 4 and 5 are  the most difficult ones. But if you like Biology you can write in it. 

I would recommend English or Economy, but it just mine opinion, you can find Biology more interesting. 

[sjhingran]

 

 

I do not think that IB is very easy, remember you have extended essay, TOK, CAS, they need time. Therefore it is not just about 6 subjects. You have many assignment , internal assessment. 

I think in IB you need to understand things, even in history, and you need to be critical in some subjects in order to achieve high score.

 I recommend you to read the IB-learner profile.

 

Thank you! I had a read through the IB Learner Profile and it seems like they are really asking for a lot! I also read up a bit on the Extended Essay, what would you recommend is a good subject to write the Essay on?

 

I wrote mine in History, I feel group 4 and 5 are  the most difficult ones. But if you like Biology you can write in it. 

I would recommend English or Economy, but it just mine opinion, you can find Biology more interesting. 

 

 

If I write it in Biology do I have to conduct experiments with that?

[Maharshi]

Hi,

 

It depends on what level of Biology you are doing your experiment on.  If you are doing your essay on something that is too vague or too complicated to experiment on, try to research specific points of your topic.  If your topic is able to be experimented on but you lack the equipment to experiment it, then try to find someone who did the experiment and try to talk to them or find their results.  Be specific when citing something from their results.  Experiments give credibility to your argument in your essay.

 

[Emmi]

 

 

 

If you'd like to get higher than a C, then yep. Hence why biology (and other Group 4 extended essays) are said to be much more difficult!

[ShootingStar16]

Like what other posters have said: a 45 is really hard to obtain. I want a 45/45 too (don't we all?), but yeah it's hard. If you're memorizing, IB biology will be super easy for you. I find it to be the easiest out of all my IB subjects. You know you are definitely suited for IB when you can balance extracurriculars with school and you also have a bit of space to squeeze in a social life. Look at the IB learner profile if you want to know what type of learner is suited to IB. 

 

Here's some info for your selected courses:

 

English HL: I find it to be very enjoyable despite the fact that it's so much analysis. It can get hard when you get that particular passage you can't annotate and writing commentaries takes practice, but other than that I really like it

 

Biology HL: like what I said above, I think it's the easiest IB subject, but you have to memorize lots of diagrams. However, if you find that you're good at that memorization stuff, you should be ok with memorizing diagrams and such. Have a really solid understanding of your command terms because with written response for sciences, IB expects extremely specific things and you can tell what they look for by looking at how much a particular question is worth. Hopefully, you get a teacher who knows what they're doing and directly tells you what IB wants. 

 

Chem SL: strangely, the content for chem is easier to understand, but it's harder to do well in than bio. You have to be able to do calculations AND apply the concepts you know. Just saying.. don't be surprised if your marks drop a lot in this class at the beginning. I cried when I got my first chem quiz back, but you get used to it and you can definitely pull your marks up once you know what your teacher/IB exactly wants. 

 

Math SL: can't really say because I am not taking it until next year (at my school, I have to do both regular and IB curriculum so yeah ) 

 

TOK: it's like a discussion forum and it messes up your mind so much sometimes. Hopefully, you get a good teacher for this because TOK will be terrible if you get a teacher who has no idea what they're doing. 

 

EE: do what you are interested in and I advise getting a supervisor you know so it won't be awks when you have to meet up with them to discuss your EE. They should also know what they're doing or you're screwed I'm doing my EE in history and apparently, history and English are easiest to score high on, but just do it based on your interests because it is torture writing a 4000 word essay on something you have no interest in. Maybe if you want to build upon your dreams of going into medicine, you could do a bio EE? For sciences, you have to design a lab and you have to get solid data from it because research EE's in the sciences do not score high. If you're doing it for a second language, keep in mind that you have to write the EE in that language. 

Edited March 31, 2015 by ShootingStar16

[sjhingran]

Wowow! Thank you to everyone who has responded.

I found out that our school's TOK teacher is a complete mess and is actually an English teacher, so a lot of ex students took online TOK lecture/classes just to help them out.

Do you all think that doing HL Bio over HL Chem is a better option?

[ShootingStar16]

Wowow! Thank you to everyone who has responded.

I found out that our school's TOK teacher is a complete mess and is actually an English teacher, so a lot of ex students took online TOK lecture/classes just to help them out.

Do you all think that doing HL Bio over HL Chem is a better option?

uhh well it depends on the university's requirements. In my opinion, probably best to stick with HL bio if you can. I heard HL chem was a killer Ik that with the new curriculum, some of the HL stuff moved to SL chem and yeah it seems pretty demanding. 

[Maharshi]

 

Wowow! Thank you to everyone who has responded.

I found out that our school's TOK teacher is a complete mess and is actually an English teacher, so a lot of ex students took online TOK lecture/classes just to help them out.

Do you all think that doing HL Bio over HL Chem is a better option?

My TOK teacher is also my IB Psychology HL teacher.  We start of our TOK "discussion" with him telling us about some definitions and about claims.  These topics then are transferred to our discussion.  This so-called discussion quickly turns into an argument where half of the 12 kids that are in my IB cohort don't talk and the other 6 pick one side or another and argue about pointless statements about shoes and quantum particle accelerations.  I don't think that helped at all...but I just felt like expressing to you guys after the previous.

[sjhingran]

Ahhh I see. What about Maths SL vs. Maths Studies? At the moment, I do fairly well in Maths (usually in the mid 90's), but I don't exactly like it. What's better to get the highest mark, since subjects aren't scaled?

[ShootingStar16]

I can't really say, but based on the regular curriculum at my school, the class I'm in is equivalent to studies (it's called Math 30 and SL is math 31 and before grade 12, you choose if you want to repeat Math 30 which is studies or go onto 31 which is SL). From what I can see, it's pretty straightforward with studies, but it's recommended that you do your homework whether it be SL or studies. We did some of the IB content for math back in pre-IB and it is definitely not that bad, but it does require lots of practice to get the hang of. If you want a better idea of what it's like, you could maybe look up some old IB math exams and compare? Here's a site that has past papers for math: https://sites.google.com/a/g.coppellisd.com/coppell-ib-math/math-sl/past-ib-papers

Edited March 31, 2015 by ShootingStar16

[King112]

Wowow! Thank you to everyone who has responded.

I found out that our school's TOK teacher is a complete mess and is actually an English teacher, so a lot of ex students took online TOK lecture/classes just to help them out.

Do you all think that doing HL Bio over HL Chem is a better option?

Really, it depends on you. I am not a science guy, so I take physics sl (because I find it somewhat interesting). Really, the workload, in my opinion, is often psychosomatic and if you like the subject it becomes easier

[ibprincess]

before ib, what sort of grades have you been getting? if for year 9 and 10 you've benn first or second in all your clases i would recommend hsc as hsc rewards ou a lot more for being first in your classes. in hsc, you only need 10 units (were most subjects are 2 units so 5 subjects) but in ib, with your subject combo, you're doing equivalent to 15+ units so you're doing a lot more +tok/ee/cas 

[ibprincess]

also ib vs hsc maths goes

 

hsc general maths (largly statistics based)

math studies (statistics + introductary calculus)

hsc mathematics (pretty hard)

hsc entension 1 (extension from previous so very hard)

maths sl (really hard)

hsc extension 2 (killer)

maths hl (dead)

 

australian uni's don't care too much about if you do math studies and for medicine studies is fine

[Acterale]

Ahhh I see. What about Maths SL vs. Maths Studies? At the moment, I do fairly well in Maths (usually in the mid 90's), but I don't exactly like it. What's better to get the highest mark, since subjects aren't scaled?

 

The subjects aren't scaled, but if I had half the ability you have I'd start off in Maths SL and if it's 'too much' then perhaps drop to studies like a couple of people from my school did. At least if you start in Maths SL you can change; whereas if you start in studies it way more difficult to go to Maths SL

 

Some people I know in Math Studies are really good at maths and I think they're just there for the easy 7... Nothing wrong with that either!

[sjhingran]

I had a look at the syllabus and some general information on all of the subjects that I'm planning to take, and none of it (particularly SL Maths) is very difficult, which is good. This probably means that IB is focused on workload rather than content? Or is this just me?