How much will does hurt?

[Mousetastic]

Recently, we just finished up our Round 2 Presentations for TOK and to say the least, I was very disappointed. My first grade was a 6/10 which I was ok with since it was our first and I had no idea what I was doing. My only criticism was that my secondary questions were too off topic and my teacher said he lost track of what I was talking about since I jumped too quickly from each example. So we had our second round which I worked really hard on for at least two weeks straight and presented yesterday and we got our grades back today online (so no criticism available and can't see any until after Thanksgiving Break) and I got a FIVE!!! It was really outraging for me since I worked so hard and I fixed my problems from last time. He said before that 80% of the people do better their second round and it's really heartbreaking to see I actually went DOWN. I know it's not just me who thought that since all the students said they were impressed with my presentation. So how much will does hurt my overall IB grade? I know it's 1/3 of the full TOK grade but based on this, I'm not counting on getting a great essay score since either the teacher just down-right hates me or I just really suck at TOK. Ugh just an awful day yesterday... And most students in my class improved; so far I checked, I'm the only one who went down.

[Nomenclature]

Yes. This is definitely disheartening. It's something that I definitely experienced, and that we all experience at some point or another. If you step back though it's a pretty good lesson: In the real world hard work correlates with success; it's a good predictor of success, but it doesn't guarantee success. The difficult thing now is just maintaining your self-efficacy and doing what you can to work smart and work hard. Ask your teacher why you got the grade you got (you can even say your worked really hard if you want), and most importantly, what you could do to improve in the future. In the end, this sucks, but you just got to understand that sometimes you do your best and things don't turn out. You can't be naturally good at everything.

The good news for you, my friend, is that you will be able to find out if your teacher "just downright hates" you or if you "just really suck at TOK" with your essay, because your teacher does not grade that. The essay gets sent to an external marker. Your teacher has no input. (the essay is worth twice the presentation, so I guess that's also good for you).

P.S. My problem was the reverse. My teacher liked my presentation, but I got an essay marker who hung me out to dry. Twice–actually–because I paid for a remark. You win some, you lose some. Just keep working hard and you should have a win percentage over .500, and try to ask for tips on improvement so future outcomes are more favourable.

[Mousetastic]

It's a relief it's not graded by my teacher. I'm definitely going to ask him but if i get a significantly higher grade on my essay, I'll know if my teacher really hates me. Thank you for the reply; while I'm not completely over it, it did help a bit thank you.

[IJustWanaPass]

If you still have a chance, do some research on how to structure a TOK Presentation. I'm assuming that your teacher doesn't like you, which means he'll give you false advise and a lower grade. So what I would do, is look at the criteria as well.

[Nomenclature]

8 hours ago, IJustWanaPass said:

If you still have a chance, do some research on how to structure a TOK Presentation. I'm assuming that your teacher doesn't like you, which means he'll give you false advise and a lower grade. So what I would do, is look at the criteria as well.

As a proud self-taught statistician, I'd say we can split this into four cases. OP is right and teacher is wrong, teacher is right and OP is wrong, OP and teacher are both wrong in some respects, or OP is right and teacher is an evil sociopath whose marking OP down out of spite. I haven't had any formal training; but to me, three possibilities seem likely and the fourth seems very unlikely.

In general I recommend going beyond your teachers advice and doing additional research. This is because it's difficult for one person to be completely aligned and knowledgeable of IB's preferences (in reality, IB is a group of individual markers, so it's literally impossible) So yes, it's good to read up beyond your teachers advice on the TOK presentation but not asking for advice in the first place for fear of him misleading you is a bit far-fetched.