Spanish vs IB Spanish

[Stressed12]

Is there a difference between standard Spanish 3 and IB Spanish 3? Can someone with just standard Spanish 3 experience go into IB Spanish 4 without any problems? Just curious. 

[TheNintendoChip]

IB Spanish is more about the culture surrounding Spanish-speaking countries. You'll learn things about the celebrations, festivals, traditions, etc. as well as certain topics dealing with the environment, technology, personal health, etc. You will also learn how to write in various styles, like in a diary, blog, essay, etc. While you will review the grammar and other aspects of the language (all while learning definitions to words concerning the aforementioned topics), you will also supplement your current knowledge with a variety of new tenses (if you haven't already, perfect tenses, past and future subjunctive, commands), rules, and more.

I'm not sure if your school does anything differently, but mine went up to Spanish 4 before we were supposed to enter IB Spanish 4, and then take IB Spanish 5 in our senior year. However, I decided to skip IB Spanish 4 and transition from Spanish 4 to IB Spanish 5 from sophomore to junior year, and I took the test last year. I will assume that my Spanish 4 is equivalent to your Spanish 3 given that you said you have IB Spanish 3 & 4. Because of this, and from my own experience skipping a year of Spanish, you should be fine. I really didn't know a lot of Spanish before IB (In terms of tenses, I probably knew the present, preterite, imperfect, future, conditional, and subjunctive) and my vocabulary was extremely limited. So I wasn't the strongest, and I also didn't want to skip a year of Spanish -- I needed to take 2 tests my junior year -- because I was very uncomfortable with it.  A majority of the students who skipped a year got 7s [Including me], a handful got 6s, and one that I know got a 5. 

[Merril889]

Well I am not sure about IB Spanish 3 exactly but I took IB Spanish B SL and it was the year that I learned and used the most Spanish. With this class we learned a tremendous amount of vocabulary and we did oral presentations and then worked on writing a ton in the language with different writing formats like blogs,speeches,etc. We did the written assignment where you take a topic from something you learned and talk about it in a paper. After that we worked on the speaking aspect of Spanish to prepare for the Spanish orals. Then we prepared for the tests in May. This class truly taught me a gargantuan amount of Spanish and made me realize that I actually know quite a bit of Spanish. I took regular Spanish 3 and it was really boring.