How To Achieve the '45/45'

[VaishnaviSharma]

Hi All,

I am starting DP 1 in September and wish to get a 40 plus or higher

1) Could someone tell me how much effort needs to be put in to achieve this? As in the hours approximately to be put each day/week?

2) Do you recommend me to study during the summer?

3) An honest opinion on how hard it is to achieve 45/45

4) How do I go about TOK, CAS, Extended Essays and Internal Assessments? 

Edited June 15, 2017 by VaishnaviSharma

[shellziess]

Getting over 40 points is already hard... I am not saying that a 45/45 is impossible but bear in mind that 2% of all IB students are the only one's that get this result... Also in my opinion it very much depends on your subject choices, how much you will enjoy the subject, as well as how serious you are with studying (plan your time well with breaks and treats) and also a little bit of luck. I cannot exactly tell you how much you need to study because it is different for every person but it definitely requires for you to be on task all the time no matter what happens outside of school. 

 

Hope this helps  

 

Edited June 15, 2017 by shellziess

[VeronicaG]

Was predicted 45/45 at some point I think... didn't last long though.

I honestly don't think it's worth it (in my opinion anything above 43 is godly and can get you pretty far)

Was it hard? Oh hell yea. My mental health was in a pretty bad spot, I didn't have a social life, rarely saw my family and was just super miserable. Eased up a bit in my last year of IB

I think it depends on your intelligence and the courses you take. Don't worry about getting perfect immediately after starting IB. Hell don't worry about your score that much at all as long as it's enough for your post secondary pathway. Stress isn't worth it

 

Edit: one more thing to add. After being out of IB for a year, there's no lasting prestige. No one will care what your IB score is after a year, and it will not dictate your success. I'd much rather put energy into a hobby or skill that lasted a lifetime than into some special high school program

Edited June 15, 2017 by VeronicaG

[Nomenclature]

1) Lots. You will have to study and put in an amount of work that is far beyond the norm. The amount of hours is up to you.

2) Again. Up to you.

3) The 2% the shellzies mentions is deceptive. In reality, the sample (IB students) is already the cream of the crop and extremely motivated. You have to be exceptional.

4) Just as any other student would, but putting in more work.

I would recommend that you consider your goal and why you want to achieve it. Being very honest, I don't think there is much sense in being "dead-focussed" on getting a 45. I don't mean to be rude, but it seems pointless. Aiming to do well and get a good mark is normal and even something I would recommend, but the insistence on a 45 seems stupid. Getting a high score (let's say above 40 for your purposes) will open many doors for you and provide opportunities just as a 45 will. I'd try my best and see where the chips fall, as the saying goes. Whatever you do, don't do it for the prestige. Don't do it for the admiration. Even doing it "to be the best" will likely lose it appeal as you gain more experience and grow older. What I enjoyed most in IB was the people I met, not a sheet of paper with scores that may or may not be "good".

 

 

[IB`NOT`ez]

14 hours ago, VeronicaG said:

Was predicted 45/45 at some point I think... didn't last long though.

I honestly don't think it's worth it (in my opinion anything above 43 is godly and can get you pretty far)

Was it hard? Oh hell yea. My mental health was in a pretty bad spot, I didn't have a social life, rarely saw my family and was just super miserable. Eased up a bit in my last year of IB

I think it depends on your intelligence and the courses you take. Don't worry about getting perfect immediately after starting IB. Hell don't worry about your score that much at all as long as it's enough for your post secondary pathway. Stress isn't worth it

 

Edit: one more thing to add. After being out of IB for a year, there's no lasting prestige. No one will care what your IB score is after a year, and it will not dictate your success. I'd much rather put energy into a hobby or skill that lasted a lifetime than into some special high school program

Pretty much this. Very important to balance social life and workload - though I still went out with friends and family a lot during the DP, I only went partying after exams lel.

I would also like to add that unless you're from a world-class IB school with heaps of experience churning out students with 45 points e.g. http://www.acsindep.moe.edu.sg/news_announcement/news/2016-2/acs-independents-2015-ib-exam-results/ that maximizes competent teacher guidance and an uber (probably unhealthy) competitive environment with your peers,  it's going to come down to factors that are much more difficult to control.

TOK/EE and IAs are the most subjective assessment components to the IB and most teacher-dependent. You can produce an extraordinary piece of work but if your teacher for whatever reason doesn't give you the high mark you deserve, and your IA does not make it into the moderation sample, you're simply not going to get a good mark overall for that component (doesn't happen a lot, admittedly). Similarly there tends to be larger discrepancies between predicted TOK & EE marks with their final ones as again, subjectivity - experienced teachers/supervisors are invaluable in this, but they're not that common either and you'll have to resort to putting in obscene amounts of effort into making your work as close to an "A" as possible - not really worth it in the long run.

From a personal perspective and that of my peers, getting a "B" and a "C" for 2 points isn't too difficult and only requires you to put in an "adequate" amount of effort, but gunning for 2x "A"s requires ridiculous amounts of effort that doesn't bring a lot of output - refer to the Law of Diminishing Marginal Returns.

Furthermore, 42/45 of your marks boil down to how well you perform on exam day. I drank too much right before my Chemistry exam and kept thinking about going to the bathroom, as well as having received some bad news a couple days beforehand didn't exactly up my confidence - these things were definitely unexpected but still affected my performance.

If you're already consistently getting 6s and 7s in all your subjects and getting 42-43 overall, you have a shot at a 45 as almost any. Unless your performance in all your subjects are wayyy up the 7 boundary and you're just that ludicrously good that having a bad exam still puts you at a low 7, what will determine your 45 are really how lenient your examiners and moderators are, what kind of mood you were in during your exams, and the types of questions in terms of topics/difficulty presented in the exams.

 

 

Edited June 16, 2017 by IB`NOT`ez