Cynthia

There's really few hard requirements for getting a good score. 37 means your teachers aren't of a very high standard, most likely, so be prepared to do a lot of work outside of classes.

The real keys to academic success (beyond raw intelligence), based on my experience, are:

1. Understand how different types of information are, or can be, organized; and
2. Know Thy Self.

The first has to do with how you study and manipulate information. Memorization forms the basis, the fundamental structure, of everything in the IB. For some subjects what you have to memorize will be straightforward - like a list of verbs, conjugated in certain tenses. But just re-reading it won't help - you have to test yourself, use flashcards, rewrite them in different fonts. Whatever works for you. And then you get to more complicated/ambiguous areas, like learning novels for English A1. Here you don't have to memorize a whole lot, and whatever memorization you do will probably be unconscious anyways. Your best shot is to re-read texts, and read about them online, like at shmoop or sparknotes. Doing practice essays from past paper prompts (your teacher should make you - otherwise do it yourself, ask for an evaluation) is good because now you're manipulating information in a different way, putting it into a coherent structure and finding links and so on. Re-reading old essays is a great way to do last-minute revision, and often points you make in these will come easily to your fingertips when they have relevance in the exam. Manipulating information for Chemistry HL is another thing entirely; for the Industries option for example you will need to learn several fuel cells, and here you need raw memorization in a different form, visual as well as verbal (or however you condense 'to do with words' in one word. I can't think of it right now. Blame the summer). The point here is to study effectively: set out how you're going to study in advance, give yourself breaks every 20-30 minutes, and never do exactly the same thing twice. Variety is effectiveness.

The second has to do with where you are in the course. If you are getting 7s on all your assignments but 4s on your tests, you are probably going to get a 4 in the exam. Study effectively, not hard. If this means slacking off on internal homework (as long as your internal grades won't get sent to universities ie. you plan to study in the UK), especially if the work will not help you understand or remember something better, then go ahead and do it. Again. Take control of your learning; don't blindly do what your teacher tells you to. If you get a poor grade despite doing all the teacher-assigned homework to a 7 level, you won't be able to blame your teacher (more's the pity). The converse of this is to not use this idea as an excuse to slack off; in general, it's better to do any work than no work at all. But your priorities should always be the forms of assessment that most closely mirror those that will affect your final grade: so tests and lab reports for Chemistry, in-class timed essays for English A1, artwork (I guess?) for Art. You basically need to know at every stage in the course whether you're on track for a 5 or a 7, and if you're not headed in the right direction, be prepared to make drastic changes. Working throughout the course is much easier than cramming in the last two weeks; be smart, motivated, diligent, and above all,  prepared.

The basic conclusion to draw from all this (tl;dr) is to always know where you are in terms of knowledge, and where you want to be, and then to study, effectively, with that in mind. No test mark should ever surprise you: if you felt drastically different about your performance, you are experiencing a disconnect with the assessment. And knowing what boxes you have to tick is basically the essence of any curriculum. Ergo, keep an eye on the boxes...

I kinda wish we could give negs here.

@Keel as a daughter, I would definitely be in a difficult position. but it doesn't mean I'd let my dad cheat. if he had to, he MUST be in jail. if he was to murder his boss, perhaps I'd have the chance to convince him not to, but if it already happened, I'd talk to him and tell him he MUST confess. it's not like killling a mosquito and you could forget it. it's a big deal and he MUST be responsible of what he did, so he must be imprisoned still, especially because his reason to murder his boss didn't make sense at all.

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hey, it's a BIG DEAL, you know?? it's not only about cheating. it's about justice!! and fairness. if I knew I could cheat and not get caught and get IB45 then I'd just skip school everyday and cheat in my IAs and final exams. if the majority of people put in the effort to work hard and study to achieve something, but some people instead try to cheat and succeed to achieve something too, then it's unfair!! it's really really unfair and like what I said, if I knew I could've done it I'd do it too! everybody could've cheated then! as I already said again: you know you're not allowed to cheat, but you still cheat --> is the stupidest and most idiotic thing in my opinion! dunno where their brain is. and it's a big exam! what's the point of getting a 7 if it's not your own work? you don't gain knowledge. it's not making you any smarter. and it's a sin.

if you know that somebody is cheating, you know that something isn't right here, you must tell the truth! it's very important, you know!

but maybe it's also affected by one's educational background and environment. no direct offense to any of you.

Tell on them for sure. School ground honour is ridiculous. By the time you get to IB age, the idea of not dobbing in on your mates is completely redundant. Yes there are things you wouldn't report them for, but I'd feel like the world's biggest idiot if I did badly in my IB exams on the back of everybody else doing very well (consequent to cheating) and didn't get my place at Uni. "Well at least I let my classmates cheat, even if I got screwed over" would hardly be a consoling statement.

Cheating and covering other people's backs is okay for school work - as you said, it's the pupils versus the teachers and that's fine. Copy each other's homework, look at each other's papers in in-class tests, whatever. People who don't do that are missing a trick. However it is categorically NOT okay for serious formal external examinations, such as IB exams. Anything which seriously, genuinely matters, it is absolutely not right or even forgivable to cheat.

If they lose their Diploma it's their own bloody fault for trying to cheat. It's not an individual decision - if they cheat, they make you look bad for having less knowledge than them. I'm not going to be the lowly stone on which they step to get their leg-up in life, that's not a role I ever intend to fill, and I think it's disgusting that people in this thread claim to have done so for formal IB exams. It's a shame nobody spotted you cheating, to be perfectly honest. Being bad at Maths means you should work your socks off to get better at Maths, it in no way WHATSOEVER justifies cheating. I worked my brain into sludge turning a 4 in Maths to a 6, it pisses me off no end to think that somebody else thought it was fine (and got away with) to cheat their way through what I had to work very, very hard to earn.

Despicable, and moreover immature. It's people's future lives in terms of getting University places that we're talking about, and if you think that schoolground politics and not telling because it's "us versus the teachers" trumps that, your mentality is still stuck in schoolkid land. The moment those exams finish you're not a schoolkid any more, and helping people cheat for classmate kudos is plain old dim. They're not going to come back in 20 years times and give you a pat on the head for it. For formal exams, I couldn't respect anybody who chose to cheat enough to want to help them out. They're doing you a disservice to get themselves ahead, it's not people clubbing together 'us' against 'them' because the 'us' in that equation consists of somebody claiming to be your friend by metaphorically ****ting on your head.

Hmph, this kind of thing really winds me up. The IBO are idiots for not introducing more timezones or making people sit in at the end of exams until everybody taking them has finished, and I think it's a shame they can't retrospectively take diplomas away from people saying that they cheated to get them. We used to have to sit in late in exams for GCSEs, don't see why the IB gives people a free-for-all on information if you're in the right timezone and have a complete mug somewhere else using their half a brain cell to give you information so you can cheerily screw them over under the false sign of solidarity.

Arrowhead, on Jul 19, 2011 - 05:19, said:

Tell me, does getting 41 for your IB or 94.14% for you ICSE actually mean anything? For someone who likes to flash their academic records around and for some one studying criminal law I find it quite amusing how you both explicitly support and actively conduct malpractice. No sense of shame or regret either; in fact you go to the extent to try to justify your actions.

If I may, (since this is I think a rather brilliant summary), I'd add a little something...

Firstly, for revising, I find it incredibly helpful to have certain "themes" in mind for every section. Since the question do take rather different twists, its helpful to have a basic structure, or rather basic themes on every topic that you know you can integrate. Its hard to explain; what I did was have individual modules in my mind that I could twist onto every question on a topic.
E.g.: for any essay on the 1917 revolutions, I would know that I would always devote a considerable section, up to a paragraph, to the effects of the war; within essays on Hitler, I would always place a considerable portion of my essay on the (flawed) economic policies. This probably sounds rather obvious, but its helpful in connection with the second point.

As Cynthia said, reading "real" history is essential. This is especially the case for those frequent questions rewarding "perceptive comments" in the higher markbans. I you have one, two ideas or facts that make your essay stand out from others per topic, remember these as the "themes"; try to group your essays around them. Standing out I think is always good, especially since we all do very similar topics and probably use very similar textbooks (which makes further reading so important).

Two more tips (my personal opinion): I would never start writing an essay without at least rough planning! This is especially the case for paper 3: train yourself to write in 45 minutes (you need it anyways for paper 2) and you have a full 5 minutes more to plan an essay in paper 3, for each! And you should not need 5 so youll still have more time than for paper 2 essays.

Lastly, in general Cynthia's tip on doing easy essays last makes sense, and the point with converting extra time to extra info is good. On the other hand, if you dont need 45 minutes for a "hard" topic, youve probably done something wrong While writing, since our teacher misprepared us to the extreme on the topics I had to chose from rather strange questions on paper 3; and I found it very helpful to the essay on which I had the most pre-prepared structure first, just for warming you up.

PS: for the HI, something I realised: procrastination in itself is never good. But I did mine veeery early and regretted it alot, because my writing style, simply through more practice as I came closer to the exams, improved exponentially. So find a topic, do your reasearch early. But consider writing after you have some experience. (same goes for any EEs)

The overall IB diploma grade is only affected by your Internal Assessment grade and the external IB exam grade. Each subject grade has its own components, but in general it's IA and IB exam.

Mathematics IB Diploma Grade Components
Mathematics HL

• 30% from Paper 1 Exam
  
• 30% from Paper 2 Exam
  
• 20% from Paper 3 Exam
  
• 20% from Portfolio (IA)

Mathematics SL

• 40% from Paper 1 Exam
  
• 40% from Paper 2 Exam
  
• 20% from Portfolio (IA)

Mathematical Studies SL

• 40% from Paper 1 Exam
  
• 40% from Paper 2 Exam
  
• 20% from Project (IA)

Please note that each exam paper grade solely comes from the exam paper and the IA grade solely comes from the two portfolios that you produced. So if you get 80% in your Paper 1 exam, that is what you get for that paper, no matter how much you score in your IA or other papers. The overall grade for your Math subject does depend on each exam paper's grade and your IA.

Regarding what iber2011, I believe it's about the IA moderation. Say your teacher at school has graded your IAs. If there are many students in your class, your teacher will choose some students' IAs to send to the IBO for external moderation. As explained in this thread:
If there are <=5 students in your class, all IAs will be sent for external moderation.
If there are 6-20 students in your class, 5 IAs will be sent for external moderation.
If there are 21-40 students in your class, 8 IAs will be sent for external moderation.
If there are >=41 students in your class, 10 IAs will be sent for external moderation.
Your teacher may randomly select your IA or whatever, it depends on your teacher -- sort of depends on your luck too, and send them to the IBO for moderation. The IB examiner will then grade your IA regardless of the grade that your teacher gave you. If the grade seems okay, the examiner will just agree with and leave it. If your teacher is too strict in marking, the examiner may increase your grade. If your teacher is too lenient, the examiner may also lower your grade. If your IA is not sent for external moderation, whatever grade your teacher gave you will be counted as your IA grade.

Both in question 3 in Paper 1 and in Section C in the Internal Assessment, you will be asked to evaluate sources for their Origins, Purpose, Values and Limitations. Here are some questions you should be asking yourself when you are faced with a particular type of source:

Julie, on Mar 03, 2011 - 18:58, said:

Well since I just happen to be in the middle of an essay on Russian revolution I happen to have a plethora of books I could recommend. However, I'll try to keep it short. Also last week I did an essay on Gorbachev so if you need advice for later period I'll happily give that too, and earlier this term I covered Stalinism, so mainly Khrushchev and Brezhnev eras aren't my thing.

I will probably end up listing an excessive amount of books, since it is rather easy to forget that after all you're doing six subjects and history is not your only concern.

I would definitely start with Robert Service's A History of Twentieth Century Russia. (Or whatever the title is now, as it keeps changing with new editions, anyway a fairly recent overview of Russian history by Service who is one of the best in the field).
Looking at the revolution itself. Sheila Fitzpatrick's S. Fitzpatrick, The Russian Revolution. This is a classic revisionist work of the field offering some original, striking and quality analysis as well as a good general overview of the period (and it is not too long either!)
Orlando Figes's A People's Tragedy is a magisterial work on the topic, but unfortunately also magisterial in size. If you can find it in a library (and any relatively well stocked university library/equivalent should have it) I'd recommend taking a look at it. It's a very enjoyable read, but you might not want to go through the whole of, just look at his argument so you can use it for your essays/stuff.
Richard Pipes is the conservative fiercely anti-communist historian of the field, I cannot agree with most of his conclusions and interpretations, but knowing what he says is good, at least for countering his arguments.

There should be at least some books that should suffice for the era of the Russian revolution (and most likely well exceed what is demanded). Robert Service is definitely a good bet, because his book covers the whole Soviet period rather plausibly. As I said before, if you want more books on this period just ask. Also just ask if you're doing more on Russian history esp. Stalin and Gorbachev, (the Fitzpatrick book should be pretty good for Stalin also, as her interpretation is that the revolution only ended in the purges of the 1937 and therefore she included collectivization and industrialization in her book).

When it comes to the Cold War, it isn't really my special are, but I'll have a go. John Lewis Gaddis's book The Cold War is a decent book to start with, especially his treatment of the origins is plausible (that is really the only period that I have studied). However, he is slightly biased by his western perspective. Not always in interpreting events in favour of the West, but more because he simply doesn't deal that well with the Soviet Union imo. However, in a week or so I'll be doing an essay on the Marshall plan, and European economic recovery so if that falls in your areas of interest I'll be able to give some advice. Also his book We Now Know: Rethinking Cold War History is a good one. Tony Judt's Postwar is an amazing book basically covering Europe from 1945 up to 2000 or so. He writes very well, is enjoyable to read and is always high quality in analysis. However, his focus is on Europe, not Cold War per se. I also have to advertise David Reynolds's books, after all he is a fellow at my college, his One World Divisible is a good global history of the period 1945 onwards. Also he has done some work on cold war, for example From World War to Cold War. These are some overviews of the period, again if you want I can try to give some more specific books, but don't know how much you need them. And since I'm mainly studying European history, most of the books might be more European in their perspective than desired.

So yeah, there should be something you can dip into, if you want more advice or my views on some areas don't be afraid to ask. After all I'm a pathetic person at university still posting on ibsurvival

Self-explanatory (don't you think?).

Yeah, every famous person is part of a secret sect and even though it's secret, they keep leaving subliminal messages of it's existence. The "illuminati" started as a secret sect for scientists on the run from the catholic church and in search for knowledge and being "illuminated". However, somewhere in along the path of illumination they turned into a secret sect for the famous stars, stupid hypocrites (since they're now represented by the dumbed-down mainstream media) How about "The illuminati are big failure!" Discuss how a group of the world's elite can collectively take such a path of self-destruction.

http://news.bbc.co.u...ion/8085011.stm

"Female students are ahead of men in almost every measure of UK university achievement, according to a report from higher education researchers. A Higher Education Policy Institute report shows that women are more likely to get places in the top universities and go on to get better grades. Women also outnumber men in high status subjects, such as law and medicine. Women have been entering university in greater numbers than men in recent years - with the participation rate for young women standing at 49%, compared with 38% of young men.

The study disproves the notion that men dominate in the most highly-regarded subjects and institutions. It found that women are taking more places at prestigious Russell Group universities and on the most sought-after courses.The only exception is for Oxford and Cambridge, where men and women are now level. There are also still some subject areas, such as courses related to maths, physics and technology, where men are in the majority. But the overall picture shows a consistent trend in women substantially outnumbering men. In degree grades, women are more likely to gain "good degrees" - taking first class and upper seconds together - while men are more likely to gain lower seconds and thirds.

However the report also shows that the greater success of women in education is a global pattern - suggesting it is more than the local circumstances of particular types of exam."

Thought? Personally, I'm proud that women are achieving better than ever, despite the difference in wages that still exists.

Links to similar articles:

http://news.bbc.co.u...ucation/3110594
http://news.bbc.co.u.../882926.stm.stm
http://news.bbc.co.u...ion/6314055.stm
http://news.bbc.co.u...ion/6364337.stm

filippa, on Sep 02, 2010 - 18:22, said:

well i think whether it is truly unethical will be determined by the ib ethics committee now. its out of my hands.

saunders is god, on Aug 03, 2010 - 22:17, said:

this man is obviously a genius, I cannot comprehend the sick and twisted mind frame of anyone who would dare contradict him.

I dont know wwhat these classes are but you should study in a sound prove room with no one but you in there

pnkct, on Apr 13, 2010 - 18:46, said:

I don't know if I've misread what you've said, but you're meant to be discussing
1. the role of language in history
2. the role of reason in history

Not the role of language where it combines with reason in history. I'm sure you can think of ways we use reason in history! Just think of propaganda, how we fill in the gaps in knowledge, how we interpret and identify biased sources, how we deal with artefacts and reconstruct things in archaeology etc. I'm sure language and reason may overlap in some respects, but if you're stuck because you think you have to discuss them combined, you don't have to! (: