How hard is it...

[TiluIB]

I'm pretty talented, but I'm just wondering. Is you're life going to be only reading, if going for 7's.

For example math HL and biology HL

[bigbangfan]

Hm, It's always hard to get 7's in IB. 4 and 5's are easy, but the IB is always slightly reluctant to give 7's. Anyway, people manage to get 7's with constant effort and dedication to the subject. The best way to get a 7 is to have excellent internal assessments, which is not a hard task for the sciences nor mathematics.

I did not take IB biology so I can't talk about the matter. However, I've heard that biology HL is the easiest from the HL sciences. As an mathematics HL student, I shall confess that it is the most demanding course ever. It requires tons (literally) of studying and practising. Not to tear your dreams off, but I really put all of my efforts on the subject and ended up with a 4. So you should work more than I did, and I'm sure you will. If you start working your ass of (literally) from now on, you can achieve 7's. Always remember: "what the mind can conceive, it can achieve". GOOD LUCK!

[Lero]

Biology, yes. Be prepared to memorize lots of information, pretty much the whole course. Math not so, need to build up an infallible understanding of the concepts and be apply to apply them flawlessly.

[wombat123]

I agree with Hus; for Biology HL, you need to memorize everything. How easy this is depends on how good your memory and time management is. I'm not taking Math HL, so I can't really say anything about it, but I hear it's super difficult. I did do one portfolio as a Math HL before dropping down to SL, and got slaughtered.

[elmar]

IB Bio has its drawbacks, but my teacher broke it down.

You need to do exceptionally well on your IAs. That gives you something like 20-30 points, if I remember correctly. Don't put them off to the last minute. If you are taking Biology HL, then definitely put your priority in your IAs for this class above the others (your Group 1, although I'm not suggesting you just bull**** your Group 1 IA's - just focus on your Bio HL first). Make sure they make sense too.

People in my class actually had data that didn't add up and while their friends didn't have the heart to them they miscounted, the teacher certainly did and gave them barely passing rates (10/16, if I believe). Honestly, the majority of IB kids are the worst when it comes to major papers because we wait to the last minute and try to b.s. - that is why you should be the rebel and start your IA the first day it's assigned. And check, check, check for mistakes. Get a good friend to check your IAs and if you don't have a good, grammar-orientated friend, have the smartest kid in the class do it and you'll give them $5 or a pencil case or something. IB kids love pencil cases.

Then you have your Group 4, which is really easy. If you fail that, you shouldn't be in IB.

Finally, your exams. This is the most probability in getting a 7, and so while it's not necessarily the hardest, it is the most stressful, which makes it feel really difficult. But, to prepare, you should review consistently throughout the year(s). Get a copy of the syllabus and break it down so you can study periodically throughout the year, building up your knowledge. Make a schedule if it helps, and keep to it. The final stretch starts with the summer between IB1 and IB2, and this is the perfect opportunity to take a quick break before you relearn all that you learned the previous year in time to add in the next year's stuff.

Getting 7s in some subjects (English A1 HL, any of the Humanities [besides weird ones, like History], and any of the sixth subjects [except Music]) is easy, as long as you read the syllabus and follow it's guidelines. When you think about it like that, you should be able to follow the same procedure for the other subjects, correct? This is exactly how it is; most people just get confused and blindsided because the other subjects (the maths and all of the Group 4s) are so broad, large, intimidating, and just ugh, but if you focus on the syllabus and the guidelines of whatever IB wants you to do (the IAs, the exams, etc.) you SHOULD do well.

Good luck!

Edited July 23, 2011 by elmar

[dessskris]

it's very subjective... if you're naturally good at that subject, no matter how difficult the course is, you should be able to score a 6/7 easily. but if you're not good at that subject and are taking it at HL, you are likely to be struggling to get a 6/7. like you'll need to spend a lot of time studying for it, practising and revising... <-- one of the reasons why you should take subjects you are good at. but if you're just very hardworking and studious, a 5/6 shouldn't be too difficult. but if you are very slow and lazy, like to slack off and procrastinate, never do your HW...how can you expect to get even a 5??

I personally think Math HL is easy but Biology HL is a disaster for me.

[Peanut Butter Jelly]

pretty talented usually won't cut it. Bio and Math HL usually don't go well together. Usually people are either good at concepts for math or good at memorizing a bunch a stuff.

I believe you can get a 7 in 1 of the subjects.

[TiluIB]

Biology, yes. Be prepared to memorize lots of information, pretty much the whole course. Math not so, need to build up an infallible understanding of the concepts and be apply to apply them flawlessly.

So you're saying math is the easier one?

[Sammie Backman]

pretty talented usually won't cut it. Bio and Math HL usually don't go well together. Usually people are either good at concepts for math or good at memorizing a bunch a stuff.

I believe you can get a 7 in 1 of the subjects.

I disagree.

Empirical evidence stands against your proposition, you should read up on the so called "G factor". About a year ago, a (Swedish) research paper pointing out a strong correlation between high grades in mathematics and high grades in other subjects was published.

I believe that if you ask people on IBSurvival, you are going to find a shipload of students who have gotten 7's in both conceptually difficult subjects (namely Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry) and memory-heavy subjects (ie. Biology, History, Psychology).

TiluIB: Getting 7's in the IB is difficult, but I believe in studying smart rather than studying hard. Make sure that you know the syllabus, and do a lot of past papers! By practicing on old exams you get used to the kind if questions asked, which is crucial to performing well on the actual exams.

Edited July 23, 2011 by Sammie Backman

[Peanut Butter Jelly]

pretty talented usually won't cut it. Bio and Math HL usually don't go well together. Usually people are either good at concepts for math or good at memorizing a bunch a stuff.

I believe you can get a 7 in 1 of the subjects.

I disagree.

Empirical evidence stands against your proposition, you should read up on the so called "G factor". About a year ago, a (Swedish) research paper pointing out a strong correlation between high grades in mathematics and high grades in other subjects was published.

I believe that if you ask people on IBSurvival, you are going to find a shipload of students who have gotten 7's in both conceptually difficult subjects (namely Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry) and memory-heavy subjects (ie. Biology, History, Psychology).

TiluIB: Getting 7's in the IB is difficult, but I believe in studying smart rather than studying hard. Make sure that you know the syllabus, and do a lot of past papers! By practicing on old exams you get used to the kind if questions asked, which is crucial to performing well on the actual exams.

So the question is OP..Do you know you can get a 7 in Maths HL?

[Lero]

Biology, yes. Be prepared to memorize lots of information, pretty much the whole course. Math not so, need to build up an infallible understanding of the concepts and be apply to apply them flawlessly.

So you're saying math is the easier one?

The content in Biology is simple, nothing hard about it. Just need to put in the time to memorize it and stick it into your head. Math varies depending upon the person, if you have a strong math background and are willing to work hard who says you can't get a 7?

[dessskris]

good point Sammie, but you both can't generalise like that... it's just like math: if a statement is true for one or several numbers, it doesn't mean that it's true for all numbers...

I'm good at math but I totally suck at memorising. all the humanities subjects plus biology... I'd say the majority of people would be like me (good at either memorising OR understanding concepts, not both). but there ARE people who are good at both.

but usually it's either one.

for OP, if we want to talk about your subject combination, what exactly do you want to study at uni?

getting a 7 doesn't mean studying 24/7. if you're naturally good at something, it would be a walk in the park.

[Peanut Butter Jelly]

good point Sammie, but you both can't generalise like that... it's just like math: if a statement is true for one or several numbers, it doesn't mean that it's true for all numbers...

I'm good at math but I totally suck at memorising. all the humanities subjects plus biology... I'd say the majority of people would be like me (good at either memorising OR understanding concepts, not both). but there ARE people who are good at both.

but usually it's either one.

for OP, if we want to talk about your subject combination, what exactly do you want to study at uni?

getting a 7 doesn't mean studying 24/7. if you're naturally good at something, it would be a walk in the park.

exactly...I knew a kid in my school who took Math HL, and he's naturally good at it. He never does homework, and he does very well on math contests, etc.

But Biology, on the other hand. I don't think you can be talented at biology, it takes hard work and a lot of memorizing.

[ninety]

The difficulty of getting a 7 in any IB subject depends on the nature of the course and your attitude and aptitude. And it also depends a bit on luck - whether you get a good teacher or not.

I'm doing HL Maths and I'm terrible at it. I've had some bad luck because I ended up with a pretty bad Maths teacher, and on top of that I haven't been studying Maths enough in my own time. As the others have said, HL Maths is a really packed course. You'll need the aptitude and also practice to get a 7 in HL Maths.

Also, the jump in difficulty between pre-IB courses and IB itself is huge, so even if you're convinced that you're talented from the grades that you're getting right now, everything might change when you start IB. See, for my GCSEs (UK Secondary Education Certificates) I got A* for Maths and B for Additional Maths. Now, I'm getting a 5 in HL Maths (and it looks awful compared to my other grades... look in my signature).

Oh, and IAs (Internal Assessments) also play an important factor in the final grade. If you put in the effort for your IAs, especially in science subjects, you can have as much as 24% of your final grade secured before you even get into the final exams. For example, in all the sciences, you do a variety of IAs throughout the course. The grades of the best 6 IAs that you've done are taken, along with the grade of your Group 4 Project, and also the grade of your Manipulative Skills (lab safety, techniques, etc.) to give a score out of 48. This score accounts for 24% of your final grade. Right now I've got 44/48 for Physics, so I've already secured 22% of my final Physics grade.(Edit: And this means I only need to score 60~% in my final papers to get a level 7!)

Edited September 8, 2011 by ninety

[wombat123]

After reading through the other posts, I really do think that getting a 7 is based on a combo of the nature of the subject, your ability as it stands, and how hard you work at it. As said before, I agree that you can't really be "talented at biology". Unless you have a photographic memory and are able to quickly flip through the textbook and memorize instantaneously everything in sight, for biology you really need to try. You need to read and understand the material, and make sure you've got it memorized before being tested on it. Unlike the humanities subjects, you have to know it through and through to get a 7. BS-ing won't save you; there is no BS-ing ultrafiltration in the glomerulus. If you haven't read through the material and reviewed it and made sure you know it well, then you probably won't get a very high mark. It's impossible to know the material without having even looked at it.

But other subjects are different. You might be very good at literature so that all you need to do is read a summary or sparknotes on a novel, and maybe the first few chapters, and then you can poop out a 6/7 worthy essay faster than someone else who's read the entire novel twice.

[Guest IMBATMAN]

STUDY STUDY STUDY

that is all...

[Access Denied]

breathe. 7 isnt impossible. IB isnt made to screw you over. Everyone says omg unless you study non stop your dead.

I beg to disagree.

I think that a balance of social life, family, me time and school = success

i dont want to look back on these years of my life and only remember study

ther is more to life than your IB mark and if you study the write way, their is no need to go to bed at 3am like some of you do. if you study effectively should not take too long.

Chill kids. Life is too short

[Arrowhead]

Pfft... Anyone can get a 7 provided you decide to put in the hard work and there is no substitute for that. Economics was never my subject, I never loathed it, but it never interested me either, I would just coast along, happily maintaining a 6. Come exam time, I buckled down and studied and studied for 5 days straight. I read the textbook twice and memorised all the definitions, practised all the graphs, and understood all the theories. I then went online and read up on prominent examples for all the big ideas and theories (collusive and non collusive oligopolies, natural monopolies, companies that are not driven by profit maximisation, etc). Once I had all of that information, I went in for my exam and puked it out on my answer sheets. In that car pure hard work and little no interest/understanding = 7.

When it came to History, I genuinely loved the subject. I enjoyed spending hours upon hours making notes and timelines, discerning events and drawing parallels between causes and consequences. It fascinated me and it was a demanding and enjoyable course. I also displayed an astounding ability to memorise facts and quotes directly from the textbook with very, very good recall. So in History's case, I had tons of interest and a love for the subject and I put in the hard work which equated to a 7.

At the end of the day, there is no substitute for hard work. But sometimes, when you genuinely like a particular subject, the amount of hard work you put in does not seem cumbersome, but pleasurable. I found that to be the difference.

[ShootingStars]

Put in the effort, try your best, ask questions where you don't understand, know your strengths and weaknesses and then again put in that extra bit of effort, sometimes a little luck is required, genuine talent does make it easier = 7

No your life isn't going to be all reading. That depends on your studying technique.