General questions on IA (Type I mostly)

[Hyperbole]

Okay, so we just got our second chance of doing the Type I assignment again. I failed miserably the half a year ago when we were made to attempt it a first time, so I thought I'd ask some questions.

I... think I completely do not understand what the IB wants me to do. The last time (we did the infinite surds that time; now we're doing the "Parallels and Parallelograms") I thought I understood, but then I got 13 points or something. I never really understood what I did wrong/didn't do well enough.

I read somewhere ([url="http://www.cic-caracas.org/vanas/vanascontent/handouts/davis2.pdf"]in this document[/url]) that Excel is not a good graphing programme to use. Have you heard this too? Why? What should I use instead? (I've tried googling, but didn't really find anything.)

Also, do you think it would be okay if I ask someone who is done with the IB to read through my work before I hand it in? I really need to not fail this time, and I'm stabbing in the dark here... but then, I don't know if it is allowed. (IB guidelines can be so ambiguous!)

Edited to add: I'm also wondering how I should write out figures. Should I use digits or letters? Being a word snob, I hate seeing the numbers one through ten in digits in text, but I also realise that since the numbers are what I'm focusing on, perhaps I had better use digits. Thoughts?


Thanks so much in advance for any help!
- Petra

Edited November 21, 2008 by Hyperbole