Taigan

deissi, on Jul 30, 2009 - 20:54, said:

I was being sarcastic, sorry if that was above your head, I know the EU is more than 10 years old, I'm not stupid! And to answer your question I have lived my whole life in England, so I know all about the EU!

Good day everyone,

Now many people face problems once reaching their senior year. Their whole tiime is occupied by IB work, despite the fact that there are other exams to worry about. Time management is not the major topic here, it's the admission tests. Many have probably heard of the common ones (such as the SATs, BMATs..). Anyway, you will find a list of the most important admission tests in many countries and for different majors. Any additional help is greatly appreciated.

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1. SATs (Language proficiency and Mathematics)

The SAT Reasoning Test is a measure of the critical thinking skills you'll need for academic success in college. The SAT assesses how well you analyze and solve problems—skills you learned in school that you'll need in college. The SAT is typically taken by high school juniors and seniors.

Each section of the SAT is scored on a scale of 200—800, with two writing subscores for multiple-choice and the essay. It is administered seven times a year in the U.S., Puerto Rico, and U.S. Territories, and six times a year overseas.

The SAT includes several different question types, including: a student-produced essay, multiple-choice questions, and student-produced responses (grid-ins). Check the attachments for detailed approaches to each section.


1- Critical Reading:

70 min. (two 25-min. sections and one 20-min. section). Content: Critical reading and sentence-level reading. Items:Reading comprehension, sentence completions, and paragraph-length critical reading. Score: 200-800

The critical reading section, formerly known as the verbal section, includes short reading passages along with the existing long reading passages. Analogies have been eliminated, but sentence-completion questions and passage-based reading questions remain.


2- The Mathematics Section:

70 min. (two 25-min. sections and one 20-min. section). Content: Number and operations; algebra and functions; geometry; statistics, probability, and data analysis. Items: Five-choice multiple-choice questions and student-produced responses. Score: 200-800

The SAT includes mathematics topics from up through a third-year college preparatory course, such as exponential growth, absolute value, and functional notation. It also places emphasis on such topics as linear functions, manipulations with exponents, and properties of tangent lines. Important skills such as estimation and number sense are measured through the multiple-choice and student response (grid-in) questions (formerly measured in the quantitative comparison format).

Can I use a calculator?
Yes. Students can use a four-function, scientific, or graphing calculator. The College Board recommends that students use at least a scientific calculator for the SAT, although it's still possible to solve every question without a calculator.


3- The Writing Section

60 min. Content: Grammar, usage, and word choice. Items: Multiple choice questions (35 min.) and student-written essay (25 min.). Score: 200-800

The writing section includes both multiple-choice questions and a direct writing measure in the form of an essay.


A- Short Essay

* The short essay measures your ability to:
- Organize and express ideas clearly
- Develop and support the main idea
- Use appropriate word choice and sentence structure

You'll be asked to develop a point of a view on an issue, using reasoning and evidence — based on your own experiences, readings, or observations — to support your ideas.
The essay will be scored by trained high school and college teachers. Each reader will give the essay a score from 1 to 6 (6 is the highest score) based on the overall quality of the essay and your demonstration of writing competence.


B- Multiple-Choice:

* The multiple-choice writing questions measure your ability to:
- Improve sentences and paragraphs
- Identify errors (such as diction, grammar, sentence construction, subject-verb agreement, proper word usage, and wordiness)

For more information, please click here.

Some tips for the SAT

Overall Approach

 Overall_Test_Approach.pdf   55.3K   99 downloads

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Approach to the Writing Section
 Approaches_to_the_Writing_Section.pdf   152.66K   80 downloads

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Approach to the Reasoning Section
 Approaches_to_the_Mathematics_Section.pdf   266.57K   81 downloads

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The Critical Writing Test
 The_Critical_Reading_Section_of_the_SAT_I_Reasoning_Test.pdf   151.01K   73 downloads

2. TOEFL (Language proficiency)

The TOEFL® (Test of English as a Foreign Language™) test measures the ability of nonnative speakers of English to use and understand English as it is spoken, written, and heard in college and university settings.

The TOEFL test is offered in different formats depending on a test taker's location.

The Internet-based TOEFL® Test (iBT) tests all four language skills that are important for effective communication: reading, listening, speaking and writing. The test helps students demonstrate that they have the English skills needed for success.

Most people take the TOEFL test as a prerequisite for admission into colleges and universities where English is used or required. In addition, many government, licensing, and certification agencies and exchange and scholarship programs use TOEFL scores to evaluate the English proficiency of people for whom English is not their native language.

Nonnative English speakers at the 11th-grade level or above should take the TOEFL test to provide evidence of their English proficiency before beginning academic work. The test content is considered too difficult for students below 11th grade.

For more information, please click here.


3. IELTS (Language Proficiency)

IELTS is the International English Language Testing System. It measures ability to communicate in English across all four language skills – listening, reading, writing and speaking – for people who intend to study or work where English is the language of communication.

Since 1989, IELTS has been proven and trusted worldwide to provide a secure, global, authentic and customer-focused test which measures true to life ability to communicate in English. Close to 5,000 education institutions, faculties, government agencies and professional organisations around the world recognise IELTS scores as a trusted and valid indicator of ability to communicate in English.

More than 700,000 people a year are now using IELTS to open doors throughout the English-speaking world and beyond. The test is taken every year across 120 countries, and is one of the fastest growing English language tests in the world, and sets the standard in integrity, research and innovation.

For more information, please click here.



4. BMAT (Medicine + related sciences)

The BioMedical Admissions Test (BMAT) is a subject-specific admissions test taken by applicants to certain medicine, veterinary medicine and related courses at the institutions listed below. The BMAT is owned and administered by Cambridge Assessment, the new identity for UCLES, one of the worlds largest assessment agencies. We are responsible for producing and marking the test, and also facilitate an extensive worldwide centre network at which candidates can sit the BMAT.
The next BMAT test will take place on Wednesday 31st October 2007.

The BMAT is needed for: Cambridge University, Imperial College London, University of Oxford Medical School, Royal Veterinary College and University College London.

For more information, please click here.



5. UKCAT (Medicine + related sciences)

The UK Clinical Aptitude Test (UKCAT) is used in the selection process by a consortium of UK university Medical and Dental Schools.

The test helps universities to make more informed choices from amongst the many highly-qualified applicants who apply for their medical and dental degree programmes.

It ensures that the candidates selected have the most appropriate mental abilities, attitudes and professional behaviours required for new doctors and dentists to be successful in their clinical careers.

The UKCAT does not contain any curriculum or science content; nor can it be revised for.  It focuses on exploring the cognitive powers of candidates and other attributes considered to be valuable for health care professionals.

The test is run by the UKCAT Consortium in partnership with Pearson VUE, a global leader in computer-based testing and part of Pearson plc.  It is delivered on computer on a worldwide basis through Pearson VUE’s high street centres.

For more information, please click here.



6. UMAT (Medicine - Australia and New Zealand only)

The Undergraduate Medicine and Health Sciences Admission Test (UMAT) is a test administered in Australia and New Zealand to help determine who is fit to study and practice medicine, dentistry, physiology or pharmacy. As its name suggests, only those wishing to study undergraduate medicine or health sciences degrees are required to sit the test (mostly school leavers).

For more information, please click here.



7. GMAT (Business and Management)

The Graduate Management Admission Test® (GMAT®) is a standardized assessment—delivered in English—that helps business schools assess the qualifications of applicants for advanced study in business and management. Schools use the test as one predictor of academic performance in an MBA program or in other graduate management programs.

What the GMAT® Measures
The GMAT® exam measures basic verbal, mathematical, and analytical writing skills that you have developed over a long period of time in your education and work. It does NOT measure:

your knowledge of business, your job skills, specific content in your undergraduate or first university course work, your abilities in any other specific subject area, or
subjective qualities—such as motivation, creativity, and interpersonal skills.

Format and Timing
The GMAT® exam consists of three main parts, the Analytical Writing Assessment, the Quantitative section, and the Verbal section.  


1- Analytical Writing Assessment

The GMAT® exam begins with the Analytical Writing Assessment (AWA). The AWA consists of two separate writing tasks—Analysis of an Issue and Analysis of an Argument. You are allowed 30 minutes to complete each one.  


2- Quantitative Section

Following an optional ten-minute break, you begin the Quantitative Section of the GMAT® exam. This section contains 37 multiple-choice questions of two question types—Data Sufficiency and Problem Solving. You will be allowed a maximum of 75 minutes to complete the entire section.


3-Verbal Section

After a second optional ten-minute break, you begin the Verbal Section of the GMAT® exam. This section contains 41 multiple choice questions of three question types—Reading Comprehension, Critical Reasoning, and Sentence Correction. You are allowed a maximum of 75 minutes to complete the entire section.  

For more information, please click here.



8. LSAT (Law)

The Law School Admission Test (LSAT) is a half-day standardized test required for admission to all ABA-approved law schools, most Canadian law schools, and many non-ABA-approved law schools. It provides a standard measure of acquired reading and verbal reasoning skills that law schools can use as one of several factors in assessing applicants.  The test is administered four times a year at hundreds of locations around the world.

Many law schools require that the LSAT be taken by December for admission the following fall. However, taking the test earlier—in June or October—is often advised.

For more information, please click here.


That's it for now.. Have a nice day everyone.

Hello

I first want to introduce myself since this is my first post on this forum. I am a IB student in Italy and next year I going to be a senior and i am going to take all of my IB exams (ouch), I have HL- English A1, Italian B, History and SL- Biology, Math SL, and Spanish.

Ok now that that's done I just want to share my thoughts about the competition to enter the world's best universities.

Well first we need to see the admission policy of these schools and here is where the problems begin.
Lets say you are a average white American in a IB school and you want to get into Harvard. This is what happens:

(Just for the sake of simplicity lets say they Harvard only gets 100 students a year)

Now the first thing Harvard needs is all the minorities they can possibly get, so they need 2 native Americans, 10 African Americans, 3 Latin Americans, and 15 Europeans. So if my math is correct that is 30 students and you dd not enter in that category so lets see the second thing Harvard looks at.

Connections, yea unfortunately. So all the people who have a friend of a friend and have ok grades get in, that is another 20 students.

So here is where the real competition starts, the last 50 places.
First off they get the most nerds of nerds, which are like 25.
But wait, there are way more nerds with score of 45 in the IB, why don't they get in? Because Harvard does not want a desolate campus with all of its students in there dorms studying.

So the remaining 25 students are students that the guy at admissions likes. They all have like a 39, 40, 41 or 42 and they got in because during their interview Harvard liked their way of talking or their way of thinking or just something in their character.

(remember that the numbers i put here a probably not right its just to give the idea)

Now what do i mean by all this? That the high end collages just want smart people that also have something else other than there scores. So if you don't get in don't worry, no one has a secure entrance, not even that guy in your school that looks like the prefect student, its probable that he wont get in. All you have to do is study and do the things you love, if Harvard likes the things you love than good for you your in but if not then it does not matter, there are many other universities out there.

Its basically a luck game in which some people win and some don't, I know some "perfect" students that did not get in yet others that where good but not excellent did get in. I am going to try to apply for Oxford, it's very improbable that i will get in but its worth a try.

So...... if you have the minimal requirements to get in one of the great universities, give it a try even though its a long shot.

Post your thoughts and ideas if like and I hope I did not bore you to death.

If you're going to buy the revision books anyway, you may as well just buy them at the beginning. That solves all timing problems You'll probably want to read them all in the month or so before your exams, but it absolutely doesn't hurt to have them any earlier! They tend to be excellent condensed things to refer to throughout the two years. Especially the Biology and Chemistry IB Study Guides. If you're ever lost with a topic, or feel like you've missed out on the main point and got stuck in the details, they're excellent for that, too. The timing of buying study guides is aaaabsolutely nothing to worry about, just buy them all straight away and use them as is convenient for you!

Hello Taigan,

The revision books are great way to prepare for the IB exams. You literally do not have time to read over all the books for each class inside out to revise. Of course taking notes throughout the years helps, although you can easily misinterpret some things and write them down wrong or anything else. So the revision books are a great way to prepare for the exams. They are not as big as the textbooks, they don't explain each topic in the "For Dummies" wqay because you have already studied what it is and how it works, it just refreshes your knowledge of a specific subject.
I think that purchasing revision books should be done in the beginning of IB2 so that you will will recieve them before being half way done with the second year in order to have enough time to read over them. Definitely do not get the revision books too late, I mean serioysly, right before the exams? That would be useless! You would be stressing out so much about the exams and rushing to read all the information. Stary studying half way through your IB2 year.
Trust me, revision books are great!

I've taken Physics SL and I'm taking Bio HL. I think that Bio at standard level will be easier, but I think that Physics at SL will help you out more. With bio, like godofib said, you have rote memorization. It's not that hard, and I find it to be interesting. With physics, like godofib said, you have more problem solving & math, which is a plus. I can't tell you how many times I've taken something I learned from physics and used it as a shortcut in a math problem. In math class, some of the problems are applications of math like "how much work is done when..." or "find the angle between the port and the ship's route..." or just vectors in general! So I think that you'll be able to utilize the stuff you've learned in physics more, but I think that a foundation in biology is necessary [which SL bio would cover a good foundation plus some more] unless you don't mind sounding like an ignoramus. Also, I think you should have a good foundation in physics because it'll help you realize how the world around you works to a small degree. We just throw words like 'work' and 'power' and 'decelerate' and 'centrifugal' around and don't use them correctly for the most part. Physics is really cool in that aspect as it shows you the clockwork behind the complexity of the world we live in.

That being said, I don't think that physics would look more favorable than biology if you're not interested. It wouldn't matter if you're not planning on going into the sciences at all [and I consider engineering as a branch off of the sciences.] For me physics was super hard, but it was worth it. I loved it. But it was hard for me because my teacher taught from a slightly different syllabus than IB's, so we covered the majority of the options, but not in depth.

Taigan, on Sep 05, 2009 - 11:28, said:

If you are funny and sociable then yep, go for it in your speech. Everybody likes a laugh However, if you're not naturally funny, whatever you do, don't try and be funny unless you're 100% it's going to work. Basically maximise your strengths. If you're a serious sort of person, focus on making yourself out as serious, responsible, logical, clear-minded etc., because people also respect that. If you do have a good sense of humour and know people laugh at what you say, absolutely go for it, people love light hearted stuff -- just go for what suits you and reflects A) what sort of a person people think you are and B) what skills you genuinely do have. No point in pretending (possibly disastrously) anything else.

As a general rule, if you would have to go significantly out of your way to work out how to make your speech funny, it's probably not a style which particularly suits you. Anyway, as with everything uncertain, grab a friend and ask their advice.

What I would say is that the best speeches aren't memorised, aren't read and aren't concrete. People have bullet points, or even quite a detailed version of what they want to say, but use them only for backup. If you have your whole speech written out precisely as you want to say it, it comes across as stilted and (in my opinion having listened to them) juvenile that you can't think on your feet enough to make up a sentence. You want to connect with people in any speech you give throughout your life, so you have to find the level of paper-based support which is right for you to be able to go it solo. I personally like doing reasonably detailed quick sentences [on paper] of the basics of what I want to say as it basically takes all your nerves away - should something go wrong, you can always just look down and get it all right back again. Other people can cope with literally like 5 bullet points, but in my experience of doing that, that's too little and I find my attention split between trying to give my speech and worrying about whether I'll remember enough to say(!). After all, you want to be relaxed. Finally on the note of "not concrete", I also honestly feel that the best, most spontaneous speeches and also most communicative ones are the ones you've never practised. I mean, you're going to say it differently every time anyway, but if you make it into a conversation with the audience (after all you don't rehearse conversations!) it all flows much more smoothly, naturally and you'll find communication easier. At least all this works for me You do have to find what works for you, of course.

Scroll down to the end of the home page and it shows which users are online. It wouldn't be helpful with the community or the shoutbox, since all it does is tells you who's online. FYI you can ask any further questions here: http://www.ibsurviva...vival-features/

Firstly I'd find out if anybody wants to be on the council or not - at some schools student council is a big thing, and at other schools the person who gets to be on the council is the person who was last to run out of the room/vote other people in (for instance I got voted in once because I was the only person still on holiday for the first day or term) You can save some face by being extremely discreet about electing yourself if it's the latter sort!

If it's a serious thing, you should do more or less what anybody does for anything where they want to be elected as a rep. Find out what people have problems with and say you'll bring them up in student council meetings. Like if there's not enough chocolate for sale at breaktimes, or if there's not enough stuff being recycled (the people in charge of your school finances/marketing will absolutely love "green" ideas) etc etc. that's the right kind of thing to go for. Similarly "community" things, like discos, socials, cake sales, book weeks and so on tend to hit it off with the general population. You should basically just say you're going to fight for whatever people complain about/want the most. Then obviously it's also kinda a popularity contest [if you go to the first sort of school!], so make lots of friends If people know you from sports teams, or having just been very talkative and opinionated in lessons etc., that's the sort of person they tend to vote in - so if you don't speak up much, you should make sure your classmates realise you're cool with being loud and getting your point (aka their points, of course ;D) across to the establishment, and they'll probably vote you in if you let them know you want to do it.

CS2 = Adobe Photoshop version 9 and PSP = PaintShopPro, which is like an alternative image editor to Photoshop.

Coding by notepad takes about the same amount of time once you know what you're doing (assuming you're not looking stuff up all the time) - and unlike Dreamweaver, you can know what you're doing. Dreamweaver does all the hard work for you, but as a consequence you'd probably end up not knowing any of the "why" behind the stuff coming up which, IMO, is the satisfying bit - and also the bit which allows you to keep editing things independent of Dreamweaver.

An analysis of Bertolt Brecht's acting technique The Alientation Effect and to what extent is it effectively used in Galileo?
This is better.

The title you have right now sounds highly descriptive. "To what extent" gives you more depth to talk about the analyse.

I assume you mean literature which you can mention at Medical School interviews to try and help get you in?

I got really into reading all this "science" literature at one stage (although nobody picked up on it to ask me about it at interview, it was still extremely interesting!) and some of the ones I read which I'd recommend as relevant would be:

Awakenings by Oliver Sacks
The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat by Oliver Sacks
Oxygen by Nick Lane (I can't explain how awesome this book was, I thought it was absolutely fascinating)
Power, Sex, Suicide by Nick Lane
The Private Life of the Brain by Susan Greenfield

The Nick Lane ones are mostly interesting from a scientific "how the little things work and came to be" perspective, the Susan Greenfield one from a more psychological perspective (more or less how we can tally our brains up with our personalities and behaviour, in particular how cross-cultural ideas [memes] and bits of the brain all develop in clusters to interact with each other) aaaand the Oliver Sacks ones from medical case perspectives. Other relevant things to read would be stuff like the Cambridge Illustrated History of Medicine by Roy Porter and, particularly as this will really help you in an interview where they ALWAYS challenge you with ethical questions, Medical Ethics: Accounts of the Cases that Shaped and Define Medical Ethics by Gregory Pence or any decent discussion of medical ethics and ethical theories.

I hope that helps you. Also-- even if people aren't interested in medicine, I'd still recommend that Oxygen book for anybody with even the mildest of interests in science, Nick Lane has an extremely accessible writing style and it's written from a very unique perspective (in my opinion, anyway!). Kinda fascinating

Hey!

Throughout the course I've been using the mentioned textbooks to study for tests and exams. However, I have encountered a few errors (I made sure they were by checking with my teacher and websites) and thought that we should compile a list to prevent ourselves from learning something that is incorrect or irrelevant.

IB Chemistry Course Companion by G. Neuss (blue cover)

Structure & Bonding:

- Pages 66-67: Resonance hybrids is misplaced as it is HL only; it should be in the HL part of Bonding and structure

Energetics:

- Page 102: The Born-Haber cycle diagram seems to be missing in some prints. Refer to this: Click me!

Option G

- Page 373, Figure 4: "The nucleophilic addition reaction of cyanide ions with ethanol" should read "The nucleophilic addition reaction of cyanide ions with ethanal"

IB Chemistry Study Guide by G. Neuss (green/blue cover)

Organic Chemistry:

- Page 64: Right box: Mechanism of Chlorination of Methane - In the propagation stage "H₃C-H + Cl^. --> H₃C^. + Cl^." should read "H₃C-H + Cl^. --> H₃C^. + H-Cl"
- Page 66: Top box: Combustion - The general equation for an alcohol combusting completely in oxygen does not work for alcohols with more than two carbons.
- Page 66: Middle box: Oxidation of ethanol - The product of the initial oxidation of ethanol is named "ethanol". It should read "ethanal", as it is an aldehyde

For those who use the IBID Chemistry (3rd edition) textbook by John Green and Sadru Damji, an (official) list of errors can be downloaded here

Last update: April 17th

Feel free to point out any other errors - I'll make sure to add them to this list!

I have made 4 or 5 web sites but I haven't found any good Web Hosters that wouldn't add any ads on my page, so I didn't publish them.
If you are interested in creating web pages with a a lot of animation, you should deffinitely try Flash.
But it's kind of difficult at first. You may want to start with HTML and then start adding CSS and Java into it
There are a lot of online tutorials to help you out. All you need to do is practice.
By the way Dreamweaver is a good program but not for real web designers

Another point I just have to mention, the posts that supposely give you VIP should be useful and not just replying for the sake of saying something. As a matter of fact, asking for help as well as giving should have got you VIP properly.

*sorry Hien, I had say that part*