Costello

I'm sorry, why is one of your tags "boobs"?

A lot of people get scared by the prospect of doing a commentary on something they have never seen before, but really, paper 1 isn't hard at all, and a 7 is relatively easy to get.

What is required of you:
You'll be judged on five criteria, each with five markband descriptors. The highest mark you can get is 25. The criteria and the requirements to achieve five marks in each are listed below.

Criterion A : Understanding of the Text

5 : Excellent understanding of the text
# perceptive understanding of the thought and feeling expressed in the text as well as some of the subtleties of the text
# detailed and persuasive references to the text.

Criterion B: Interpretation of the Text
5 : Excellent interpretation of the text
# the candidate’s ideas are convincing and include an appropriate and considered personal response
# the analysis is consistently detailed and persuasively illustrated by carefully chosen examples.

Criterion C : Appreciation of Literary Features
5 : Excellent appreciation of the literary features of the text
# detailed and persuasive appreciation of the effects of the literary features of the text
# the analysis is detailed and illustrated by carefully chosen examples.

Criterion Presentation
5 : A clearly focused, well-developed and persuasive argument
# purposeful and effective structure to the commentary
# supporting examples are well integrated into the body of the commentary.

Criterion E: Formal Use of Language
5 : The language is clear, varied, precise and concise
# clear, varied, precise and concise use of language
# no significant lapses in grammar, spelling and sentence construction
# precise use of wide vocabulary and varied idiom and style
# effective choice of register.


How to fulfill the criteria.
Criterion A
There isn't a fixed way in which you can achieve this criteria. If you show that you understand the plot/theme, and make relevant references, you'll get the five marks. I'd recommend you begin your commentary by summarizing in 2-3 sentences what has happened, and what you think the underlying meaning (if any) is.

Criterion B
This is the personal response bit. Whenever you can ( or you think a particular bit means something but you aren't sure), add the phrase "I think this means..." and ta-DA! You've fulfilled this criterion! Just make sure you don't come up with extremely wacky ideas that you can't back up without examples from the text.

Criterion C
This is one criterion everyone's been taught to fulfill. Have literary terms scattered all over the essay. Four - five lit terms per paragraph that you write should normally be enough. The good part is that 'novel', 'poem', 'stanza' all count as literary terms too. Just make sure to explain their significance.

Criterion D
Presentation is important, and it can get you 5 certain points if you learn to do it right, even if you don't understand the poem/prose at all. Always make a plan before you start writing. Follow PEE and dedicate one paragraph to one point.

Criterion E
This is more or less the same as Criterion C, just make sure not to use slang or swear words ( seems obvious, but you wouldn't know)


How to prepare for the exam
Make a list of all the literary words that you can, depending on how long before the exam you realize you have to start studying. Memorize it.

How to go about the exam
coming soon...

Helpful tips
1. The prose passage is your friend. Many students make the mistake of ignoring it completely and going for poetry even when it's the harder option.

2. If you can't seem to find anything to comment about in either, don't panic. Remember, the IB will never give you poems or passages with no literary features/character development/pertinent theme.



If you have any more tips, post below, and I'll add them.

Pfft calculus was easy.
Vectors.......can go die. I consider vectors to be the hardest part of the SL course.

Alright, this is a bit difficult to explain but I'll try explaining the basics of assessment in any case. It isn't as simple as it looks on the outside, IBO is really putting in effort to give equal treatment to candidates. First of all, for a conclusive description of assessment, I recommend you to read Diploma Programme assessment - Principles and Practices. For ease of view, I'll split this into several subtopics:

Finding the scaled mark out of 100.

The first thing that you should understand about your grade is that the marks from all different assessment components will be scaled according to their value so that their total equals 100. This means that your scaled total marks will be between 0-100. As I mentioned, the scaling is done according to the "weight" of each component. Because these differ highly, I'll give you a few examples on how it is done:

Example 1: Mathematics SL - Paper 1 (40%), Paper 2 (40%), Internal Assessment (20%).
Paper 1 and Paper 2 are both graded on a scale 0-80. Internal Assessment is graded on a scale of 0-40. The marks of these are added up so that the total mark is on a scale of 0-200. To get the final mark with a scale of 0-100, this score is divided by two.

For example, the scores of person A are as follows: Paper 1: 56 points. Paper 2: 73 points. Internal Assessment: 26 points.
Total score: 56+73+26 = 155/200. Total final score is (155)/2 = 77.5 = 78 points. Note that the score is rounded up.

In language A1, this is done somewhat differently:

Example 2: Language A1 HL - Paper 1 (25%), Paper 2 (25%), World Literature Assignment (20%), Internal Assessment (30%).
The maximum score on Papers 1&2 is 25 points. The maximum score on the World Literature Assignment is 40 points. (NOTE: This Applies for HL only!) The maximum score on the Internal Assessment is 60 points.

Here, the total score is not calculated out of 200, but directly from 100. The scores from Papers 1 & 2 need not be scaled, but the scores from WLA and IA will be divided by two to reach a total of 100 marks.

For example, the scores of person B are as follows: Paper 1: 23 points. Paper 2: 21 points. World Literature Assignment: 34 points. Internal Assessment 49 points.
The mark is then calculated: 23+21+(34/2)+(49/2) = 85.5 = 86.

Calculating your final grade between 1 and 7.
The IB uses a bell curve to find suitable mark boundaries for exams in order to ensure that their level of difficulty will not affect the mark that a student receives. In practice, this means that although students might score poorly on an exam, they might still receive a high mark if the test has been hard for everyone. However, this is not the only factor in setting a grade boundary.
Likewise, if the test has been very easy, a high mark will be required to score a high grade. The system that IB uses to find these boundaries is, as far as I know, undisclosed, and probably far too technical to be discussed here. What can, however, be discussed is the way that your final grade is found from your component grades and your scaled (0-100) mark.

Diploma Programme assessment - Principles and Practices sums the process as follows:

Quote

As mentioned, the final grade will not be found using component grades, but rather component marks. This means that although a student would reach two low 7s in 60% of the assessment, 3 low 6s in the remaining 40% might bring the grade down to a 6. The grade boundary out of 100 can be found as follows:
7 - (lowest grade 7 mark from component 1) + (highest grade 6 mark from component 2) + (highest grade 6 mark from component 3) + (highest grade 6 mark from component 4)
6 - (lowest grade 6 mark from component 1) + (highest grade 5 mark from component 2) + (highest grade 5 mark from component 3) + (highest grade 5 mark from component 4)

I'll illustrate this with an example. The grade boundaries for Finnish A1 SL are as follows:
Paper 1:
7 - 24-25
6 - 22-23
...
Paper 2:
7 - 23-25
6 - 21-22
...
WLA:
7 - 17-20
6 - 15-16
...
IA:
7 - 27-30
6 - 24-26
...
Thus, the aggregate marks required for grade 7 would be:
P1: 24 + P2: 22 + WLA: 16 + IA: 26 = 88
For grade 6:
P1: 22 + P2: 20 + WLA: 14 + IA: 23 = 79.

Moderation of grades:
All IB assessment work is moderated. As you all should know, a sample of IA scripts from each school are always sent for moderation to an examiner. The same is done with external assessment, as 15% of each examiner's scripts will be marked by a senior examiner. Then, accordingly to the level of marking, the assessment of all scripts by that examiner is either raised or lowered. Mathematically, IB requires a correlation coefficient of at least 0.90 for the examiner's marking to be considered reliable. Further, IB uses linear regression to ensure just results. If the assistant examiner's sample scripts do not meet these criteria, they will be marked by a different examiner. Again, this is more closely discussed in Diploma Programme assessment - Principles and Practices. There is also a process called "at risking" used to reassess the work of candidates who have been awarded a final grade that is two or more grades lower than their predicted grade and within two percentage marks of getting a higher overall grade. However, if a school continuously predicts over the actual ability of candidates, it is unlikely that the school will participate in "at risk" remarking.

To answer your more specific question about lang B:
The lang B oral is composed of the Individual Oral Commentary (IOC) and the Interactive Oral Presentation (IOP). Each are worth 15%, but are graded out of 30 marks. The candidate should only do the IOC once (although practice IOCs can be held), and the IOP three times (again, practice IOPs may be held). The best (not average) IOP mark and the IOC mark will be added together to find the final Internal Assessment mark, which will then be divided by two because it must be scaled.

I'm planning on booking a holiday as an incentive to work productively throughout the IB. I've been saving and would like to go to Majorca, Ibiza, Mallaga or Zante once exams are over. Though my parents trust me, they seem to think these places encourage nothing but violence and debauchery. I just wanted to get other people's opinions on this, have any of you been? Are these places overrated? Any alternatives?

Heya people! I thought I should share some tips for Individual Oral !  

Strategies you can use to describe pictures in French

The single picture is mainly a test of vocabulary and of how well you can string a series of sentences together. Have a good look at the picture and think of all the things you can say; don't worry about the thing you don't know.

The whole scene

Introduce the whole scene before you start talking about the detail!Where is it? What is happening there?

Typical scene:

• Families and friends out enjoying a day in the park
• A classroom, laboratory, library or school playground scene
• A shopping centre or market scene
• A hospital, doctor's surgery or emergency room scene
• A street or community scene
• A recreational scene; BBQ, meal, banquet etc.
• A sporting event; footy game, swimming etc.

Some handy standard phrases to start a general description of the scene...:

• La scène se passe à la campagne
• La famille se trouve sur la place
• Au premier plan (in the foreground)
• A l'arrière-plan (in the background)
• Au milieu (in the middle)
• Au fond (at the back)
• A gauche / à droite / tout près de…

Followed by:

• il y a…
• se trouve…
• se trouvent…
• on voit…

The details

Now move to the details about the picture. Bring some verbs in by saying what the people are doing!
Example:Les enfants jouent… or Le père dort et la mère lit un journal

Try to pick up any opportunity to say what has just happened or what is going to happen – you get extra marks for this, and there is nearly always a built-in clue or two to help you.
Example: Un taxi vient d'arriver et les enfants vont monter dedans.

Don't forget to say what the people look like!
Example:Les enfants on l'air heureux, mais la mère est en colère et le père semble très fatigué.

If you can't think of anything else, at least say who the people are and describe what they are wearing.

Brainstorm as many sub topics as you can in your preparation time.

• Who are the people pictured?
• What age, sex and nationality are they?
• What is their occupation?
• What are they wearing? Is it relevant to the activity they are doing at that time?
• What are people doing in the scene? Are they all doing the same thing?

Overall structure
Structure your description by deciding what you will talk about first.

Ideal structure:
1. Introduce setting
2. Choose one or more characters to examine in detail

• Describe them; age, sex, personality etc. (Use imagination)
• Say what they are doing and why
• Repeat with other people (or animals) in picture

3. Comment on scene and give your own opinion
4. Make a summary comment to make it clear you have finished talking abut the scene.

• 'I wish I was at the park right now'
• 'I hate shopping; it's always so crowded.'
• 'My neighbourhood is full of interesting people.'

How do we do that in French?
1.Build an extensive body of vocabulary for all the situations listed above (remember, you   don't have to write the words, you just have to say them)
2.Have lots of conjunctions/linking words at your disposal so that you can smoothly move from one idea to the next and not be limited to a series of short, disconnected sentences.
3.Read aloud. What is in your head won't come out right without practice.

Points to remember

1. Always listen carefully to the examiner's questions to find out exactly what you are being asked, and what tense is being used. You nearly always use the same tense in the answer as in the question.
2. Reply simply and in fairly short sentences, but not just oui or non. Remember, the more correct French you say, the more marks you get.
3. If you can go on talking, do so (but on the subject, of course).
4. If you don't understand the question, ask in French. It's a good idea to be equipped with a set of emergency questions to help you out if you get stuck – though don't overuse them, the examiner will have met this kind of thing before!

• Voulez-vous répéter la question s'il vous plait? (Will you repeat the question please ?)
• Je n'ai pas compris la question, Monsieur/Madame

5. Try to use different tenses in your description.
6. Try to introduce a few opinions, using phrases like:

• A mon avis…
• Je pense que…

7. If you get stuck with something you are trying to say, try to explain it in another way.

Speaking criteria
1.Physical description of people and things in image. Clothes they are wearing etc. relationship between the various people (present tense)
2.Use of past tense in talking about what they've done recently or beyond.
3.Description of how they lead their lives – likes, dislikes, hobbies, sports, what they do on weekends, jobs etc. (present tense)
4.Description of their family and friends (present / past)
5.Use of future – what they intend doing some time in the future, where they might be going

Grade will be determined by fluency, accent, pronunciation, creativity, accuracy.

Practice Time!
Describe the following pictures (remember to record yourself and listen back to it!)


From Gossip girl




From bigbang Theory


From Glee
I have a couple of recordings of the individual oral which I have no idea what mark they got. I'll attach them here if that helps!

 AUDIO SAMPLE track1.mp3   3.93MB   57 downloads

 AUDIO SAMPLE track2.mp3   3.85MB   26 downloads

 AUDIO SAMPLE track3.mp3   4.24MB   20 downloads

 AUDIO SAMPLE track4.mp3   4.89MB   19 downloads

 AUDIO SAMPLE track5.mp3   4.25MB   16 downloads

My presentation was on Marijuana and to what extent taboo themes in society limit our knowledge. We analyzed 4 different Anti-Weed campaigns in order to see how they manipulate our 4 ways of knowing into believing what they want us to believe. In the end we came to the conclusion that taboo themes lead to a prison of consistency and we also showed how we could break free from this knowledge barrier.

A tip for anybody who still has to do it: while preparing the actual presentation make sure you have the criteria next to you and always look back at it since you quickly drift off on the topic rather than focusing on the knowledge issue. Also make sure that you have a proper knowledge issue which you can address. This is the flaw probably most badly done ToK presentations have, they just dont specify any knowledge issue.

TurtleR, on Sep 02, 2011 - 19:54, said:

that's a good point

and if anyone needs some examples, I could give some in Bahasa Indonesia. quote my post though or I'm unlikely to read your reply.

e.g. durian (fruit), the word 'duri' means thorn so it helps us imagine the fruit also... another example would be rambutan (fruit), the word 'rambut' means hair so it also helps us imagine the fruit.

and lots and lots of more examples. which can be funny too.

I'm not sure whether there's a thread on this yet; sorry if there's already a similar thread on here.

A while ago I stumbled upon this user on YouTube called richthornley, and I believe he's an IB Chemistry teacher. He has a lot of incredibly useful and entertaining videos on Chemistry syllabus statements, and he adds new videos every now and then.

Here are some of his videos. He has many more





I play video games so I find his videos especially interesting - he teaches using video games like Team Fortress 2 and Garry's Mod!

Feel free to share other Chemistry revision videos

did an experiment on myself: mother is the most effective

I felt like I didn't manage my time well during IB1, however upon learning from my mistakes I excelled in IB2. I went to class everyday and and Managed my due dates for the I.A.'s, EE, and TOK essay. I felt that IB2 was easier [even though there is more work], because you are used to the work load.

It is important to stay focused and do the work on time, as for the 3-5 hour homework nights... I never had those on a regular basis, they only occur rarely and it was usually because I had procrastinated. I would expect 1-2 hours on homework as a closer estimate, I personally never felt like IB got in my way.

Our society is not made for smart people. School makes close to 0 provisions for children who are superior in intellect, those who are less intelligent get far better assistance. Throughout elementary and middle school, you have a paltry token effort being made in the form of "The Gifted Program", where we did jack **** for 1 hour every couple months. All it did was signify we were different. If your kid is retarded all the teachers and principals jump out of their chairs and bend ass-over-head to accommodate the snotty little dumbass. But when a kid is doing even worse than the dumb-dumb, due to the fact that he's bored with school. He gets his ass scolded. Have you ever seen anyone be be creative, and put their hand up, connecting the lesson to something else they've heard or figured out, only to be shot down with a "you'll learn that next year" or a "that's in university". Even if they want to learn more, they can't. They have to learn an average amount.

Socially, it's even worse. You don't even have to be a inherently socially awkward kid. Socially, being different in any way is worse, especially being more intelligent. Not only do people have the usual hate for the odd one out, they also resent you because they're feel inferior, even though they are strong in other areas. And no one understands the stigma. All the pop books and movies have below average heroes that everyone's suppose to identify with, but none have the smart guy, who has just as much, if not more, insecurity with what's expected.

School itself is structured as more of a factory than a learning facility. How many times have you been like "What? I understand how the formula works, but I don't really understand how it fits together...". School teaches you that following procedure, taking notes down mechanically, repeating formulas under your breath, is the way to go? IB is just this but faster, with more work. It is not intellectually engaging, it's attrition.

I mean occasionally some blessed person will say "oh hey, there's a problem here, we better bump this kid up a grade", and while it is a step in the right direction it isn't enough. Kids can go into kindergarten with nearly a year between them. It is nice, but again only a token gesture.

After school it is know different. I'm sure a lot of you have read Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell (if you haven't, you should), and he found that intelligence correlates with success in school and success in work only up to a point, and then it is all circumstance. He found that even those who do amazing things with their vast intelligence, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, those guys had the right upbringing, the right opportunity, and the right damn blind fool luck that allowed them to succeed. You do need intelligence to do amazing things, but you also need to work damn hard, and have damn good luck. The smartest man in the world (300-400 IQ or something like that) grew up poor and coloured. Due to his circumstances (his upbringing, his mother falling ill at a certain time), he was never able to find an academic job and ended up as a farm hand.

And throughout life intelligent people have to live with the general lack of naivety that comes with intelligence. If ignorance is bliss, what is intelligence?

Please do not use Peter Smythe's book. My classmates all complained on how bad the book is in explanation. Teachers said the questions are harder than SL but easier than HL

How the hell do you party 24x7 with all dudes?

I got 35....
The test is awfully long, and I highly doubt it is accurate, I mean one can't make a diagnosis based on daily interactions.