What distinguishes a top-score HL Ia from the rest?

[Andrew]

I ABSOLUTELY need a 7 in Maths HL to enter University, and I feel quite capable and within the 7 markbands as regards the papers, without boasting. I've literally sit for at least 3 hours every single day during the last year to do exercises, so I know I will get the 7 in the tests. However, for the IA I feel like it's a completely different story. I had to do it basically overnight. I was sleep-deprived. Did pretty much all my IAs that month, and on top of that I decided to do a very unusual type of work. It was about infinity, randomness language and π. In retrospective, I feel like I was perhaps too bold in my intention, because I really craved that 7. I didn't include a lot of numbers or symbols, but the mathematics were there anyway. Suffiicient I guess. But I'm conscious that I digressed too much the nature of the task trying to cover too many topics. 

 

Can you possibly still get a seven if you IA score falls within the 5 or 6 markbands, but you do excellently in the three papers? 

[kw0573]

5-6 on HL IA is around 12-17 out of 20. Turns out that 1 point on the IA converts to 1% in the final paper in case of HL Math. So if you got 12/20 on the IA, that means you lost 8% and the highest grade you can possible score in the end is 92% (7 cut-offs for final grade is usually 80%). So theoretically, 5, 6, even 4s, allow chances to score that 7.