deissi

Wow, "to what extent does language define who we are?" Yeah, you could say the RQ needs narrowing down. I don't think you should approach it from the whole "define who we are" aspect at all. You'll just end up having a really broad essay that doesn't really focus on any argument. How about writing about "to what extent does language define attribute X in our personality" or "to what extent does language define how we experience Y", where X/Y is something very specific. Your problem will still be that the RQ might be too broad. For the RQ you posted, one can think about 10¹⁰⁰ arguments. That means you can pretty much write a lot of wishy-washy on 10 things and still not get anywhere close to covering your topic. You'll want your RQ to be pinpointed so that you can only think of 3-4 arguments about why language defines X and write (in depth) about those. This (should) mean you fulfill the requirement of the topic being worthy of investigation.

P.S. You're writing your EE in Group 2, i.e. Language B, not A2. There isn't an EE for Language A2.

Well, your teacher is right about Stalingrad being a difficult topic. War/battle topics are very difficult in general as you need to have a lot of factual background to support your arguments, and you will not be able to fit them into 4,000 words (or appendices) whilst coming up with your own arguments about the subjects. What you could, however, do is research some political aspect about the battle of Stalingrad. I'm not too familiar with the subject, but would it be possible for you to write about some specific aspect of why Hitler didn't want to retreat from Stalingrad. Something like "To what extent was Hitler's decision not to retreat from Stalingrad based on misinformation about X and Y".

Valitettavasti sinun EE:si pitää liittyä Suomen kulttuuriin, jos aiot kirjoittaa EE:si Suomi B:stä.

In English: your EE must be focused on Finnish culture if you plan to do your essay in Finnish B. You really don't want to risk the examiners (there are two) being confused about your focus culture, as that pretty much rules out everything above a C from your EE. One thing you could possibly do is write about how someone foreign experiences some part of Finnish culture (like the sauna?), but your rationale for choosing to research the topic from such an angle really needs to be well thought out. And you really must focus on Finnish culture, not, for example, compare it to Japanese culture.

Have you had a look at the EE guide, particularly pages 41 and 42?

Remember, too, that the EE is a research essay. A question like "why do exchange students from X come to Finland" is not worthy of investigation, since it is very trivial and very general insofar as it refers to Finnish culture.

egr12resa, on May 27, 2011 - 00:30, said:

This isn't a normal maths exam question, it's part of the IA, which is composed of multiple questions. Take a look at some example IAs (I think there are some on the forum) and you'll understand that it's a whole other world.

Even the older ones are useful, the main difference is that they used to have options in SL Math (similar to the ones in HL Math) and the questions on options on older papers are too difficult to solve with the current syllabus. In general the exams have been the same for years so if you've run out of newer papers I'd certainly take advantage of very old papers too.