General IB Knowledge - Ask mini-questions about IB here

[AnjaDe]

21 minutes ago, Gaby said:

The Oxford Chem textbook is fine, and I understand why it's used (my school used it too), and the guide is absolutely fantastic for revision (you could literally just revise from that), but I found Pearson extremely useful over the course for detailed explanation. 

I guess it comes down to personal taste, but i do agree about the study guides from Oxford

[Gaby]

11 minutes ago, AnjaDe said:

I guess it comes down to personal taste, but i do agree about the study guides from Oxford

A lot of things in life are down to personal taste  Textbooks are definitely one of them. 

But my life definitely change for the better when I ditched the Oxford textbook for Psychology in favour of the Guide and Pearson textbook. 2 things that genuinely contributed to my 7

[Amina13]

I personally LOVE Oxford's Study Guide for Chemistry! It is absolutely fantastic. 

I have both Pearson and Oxford, although I find Oxford much more useful than the Pearson, as it is exact, provides sample questions and answers for each topic and not that thick  For each Topic test I study from there. 

 

[Yousaf05]

Hey Guys! Little help here. We just completed our IB Oral Presentation for English and the WIT Paper. Now I am not sure if the teacher in the class said that we will be redoing the WIT paper again next year or not. I just wanted to confirm will we in IB Year 2 revise the WIT Paper and then send it off to IB or how does it work? Particularly because I got a fairly low mark on my WIT paper.

Also I score in an average of 75+ in my English class as my entire life all the English that were made available to me were language classes and for the time as I took IB we only have the option of IB English A which I believe is all literature as we are using literary devices, poems and whatnot. My counsellor has advised me to take HL English next year as she says I dont have much of a choice for HL subjects. I'm doing HL Physics, HL Global Politics, SL ESS, SL Math, SL Ab-Initio French, so my third HL can only be English and not Math even which I excel at.

What do you guys recommend, that what should I do in English to improve my grade. I have a hard time finding quotes but can write extremely well on themes, now with hard time finding quotes I barely get a good mark. 

[Rosalina]

Your first question: Depends by how each school sets their internal deadlines but I would assume that you wouldn't get to revise it since your teacher would've gone over your first draft with you. I handed my draft in today as well and while they aren't sent off until next year, we are no longer allowed to edit anything.

I don't understand what you mean by "finding quotes" so I'm afraid I can't be of much help in that regard.

[Yousaf05]

1 minute ago, Rosalina said:

Your first question: Depends by how each school sets their internal deadlines but I would assume that you wouldn't get to revise it since your teacher would've gone over your first draft with you. I handed my draft in today as well and while they aren't sent off until next year, we are no longer allowed to edit anything.

I don't understand what you mean by "finding quotes" so I'm afraid I can't be of much help in that regard.

 

By finding quotes I mean, looking for specific sentences in the novels to support my arguments. My teacher wants like 100s of those. He says if you can get 3 quotes to support 1 argument, I would give you GOOD marks. 

Also the teacher just asked us to submit a final copy and did not go over the essays individually for us to improve and write a better final copy. But I happened to look up a guide he gave us long time ago and it said we will edit and revise your WIT paper next year and then send off to IB. Timelines in my school aren't that good for full IB students as most are just doing certificates so the teachers tend to assign things all at once considering the certificate students dont have anything to do while the Full IB students are sacrificing their nights in order to get things done.

The only comments I got on my WIT Paper are through the Turnitin.com place where it showed me the ridiculous mark I got and the teacher said your paper was clearly rushed!

[Rosalina]

That's not the feedback IB had in mind when they mentioned reviewing a first draft.  You're supposed to receive constructive criticism and sufficient time to polish up your final draft. If you can, I suggest that you show the guide to your teacher and ask for a proper review if you can.

Do keep in mind that IB is the one that determines the grade you get on your WIT paper and not your teacher. Like with every IB assignment, these are also scaled compared to the rest of the world.

[katja]

Hi guys! 

I just found this and now I was wondering if you could help me.

I'm planning to start the IB this summer and I am not yet sure about my subject choices. 

My plan was to do German self-taught A SL, French/Spanish ab initio (this depends on how many students decide to pick either), Mathematics SL, Psychology HL and Chemistry HL. 

My problem now is that I'd like to study Biochemistry in Uni later on and so I have to decide between doing Biology HL or doing Art HL. I really like both subjects, but I don't know if I could cope with the workload of doing Bio and Chem as HL. Does anyone have experience with that? Is it managable? Or would you recommend doing Art instead of Bio just to have something to relax a bit? 

I was also just thinking about doing Bio and then do Art by myself for CAS, but I really don't know. 

[Kim.N]

Hello guys

I'm not sure if this is suitable question for here but how does SIMS work? what is it?

I'm in international school and I recently got detention for stupid reason.

According to the school policy, this will be logged on to SIMS but I'm not sure what that means.

Will this affect negatively when applying for college??

[MayaIAm]

On 20/02/2017 at 6:38 AM, katja said:

My problem now is that I'd like to study Biochemistry in Uni later on and so I have to decide between doing Biology HL or doing Art HL. I really like both subjects, but I don't know if I could cope with the workload of doing Bio and Chem as HL. Does anyone have experience with that? Is it managable? Or would you recommend doing Art instead of Bio just to have something to relax a bit? 

I haven't started the IB yet but from what I've seen online I can tell you that neither subject is easier than the other. It's logical that Bio HL should be harder than Art HL, however the workload and content is probably the same or Art HL may even be harder than Bio HL. I suggest you do whatever you think is best for you and your final grade. I, personally, will be taking both Bio HL and Chem HL because I want to do medicine and you could do the same for Biochemistry. 

 

An alternative to just guessing is that you could try both out for some time then make a final decision, or you could check out the eligibility requirements for the Biochemistry departments of potential universities you might want to go to. I would say this is the best choice because it helped me out when I was picking a Math level. I wanted to take Math Studies but a few universities  in the UK (don't remember which ones) require Math HL or at least SL to be taken in the IB. So this is most likely your best option.

[eli.x.rey]

Hi, just wanted to know if there were any particular subjects that are very important for me to take given that I want to be a journalist post-IB.

I'm planning on taking HL English, HL Government and Politics but don't know what else to pick for higher. I've heard advice that I should pick Film Studies.

I'm planning on taking SL Maths Studies, SL German because I have to but the other SL subject is open.

Any advice will be taken and appreciated.

Thanks,

eli.x.rey

[ShadeLily]

I was wondering, if anyone knew how and who writes the IB exam papers? Is it a committee of people or is someone in particular in charge of one paper? Do they create completely new questions for subjects like Math and Chemistry or do they sometimes use already existing questions and maybe just replace some values?

[eli.x.rey]

I'm wondering if there are any final exams for HL Sport, Exercise and Health Science that I can access. If so, can you link them for me.

Thanks

[kw0573]

8 hours ago, ShadeLily said:

I was wondering, if anyone knew how and who writes the IB exam papers? Is it a committee of people or is someone in particular in charge of one paper? Do they create completely new questions for subjects like Math and Chemistry or do they sometimes use already existing questions and maybe just replace some values?

It's a different committee that writes exams for a subject, pending approval from their superiors. For math, section A are often straight forward are there may be about 40-50% similar to recent papers. Math section B is more new each time, but there still will be similar questions, maybe around 15-20%.

In Chemistry, paper 1 typically has duplicate questions, or questions that are worded differently but testing the same concepts. These account for 20-30% of questions. Paper 2 and 3 will hardly ever have the same question with numbers changed, but everything has to be based on the syllabus so one year it could be given A find B, next year it may be given C find A. The data question is always new.

In summary, you will not find any exam strikingly similar to another, but instead they tend to have slightly different emphasis from year to year.

[kw0573]

On 3/17/2018 at 4:28 PM, eli.x.rey said:

Hi, just wanted to know if there were any particular subjects that are very important for me to take given that I want to be a journalist post-IB.

I'm planning on taking HL English, HL Government and Politics but don't know what else to pick for higher. I've heard advice that I should pick Film Studies.

I'm planning on taking SL Maths Studies, SL German because I have to but the other SL subject is open.

Any advice will be taken and appreciated.

Thanks,

eli.x.rey

I haven't check entry requirements but something like history or economics may work well. You also need a group 4.

[kkb]

Hi, I'm in semester 1 of year 11 IB. I just got a 3 on my SL Maths term report. Does this mean I'm unable to continue, or...? Will a meeting be arranged or anything like that?

[Rosalina]

1 hour ago, kkb said:

Hi, I'm in semester 1 of year 11 IB. I just got a 3 on my SL Maths term report. Does this mean I'm unable to continue, or...? Will a meeting be arranged or anything like that?

IB only factors in the marks you get on your IA and IB exams. They don't care about anything else. Your school, however, may have other requirements so it'd best to ask your teacher whether you can continue and what you can do to improve your mark.

[Court]

I have a question that isn’t about an RQ. I don’t know if anyone can help, but here goes nothing. I am doing a Design Technology IA and I dont know if my prototype has to built out of the materials I listed the final product would be made of. If they are supposed to be made out of the listed materials I am screwed, because I’d have to spend $1,000 USD. From my understanding, and my friends, a prototype is a functioning model and doesnt have to be made of the actual materials, otherwise you’d (or the designer in general) be wasting money. However, my teacher said they don’t know. What do you think?

[Divarient]

I really need help... Do you think my History IA topic "What was the significance of the Katyn Massacre" is too broad?

[DiviDivi]

2 hours ago, Divarient said:

I really need help... Do you think my History IA topic "What was the significance of the Katyn Massacre" is too broad?

I think it's too broad.  You could try a "to what extent" question, for example, I did my practice IA on "To what extent did Dutch Studies in Japan usher in a new era of science and technology?"

You could also add on to your existing question, "What was the significance of the Katyn Massacre to ________?"

I'm not the best person to give advice on the history IA, I finished my first semester of HL history at the end of January and am currently studying other IB subjects.  I recommend that you post in the History section to get more replies and suggestions.