Exam Options [SL Specifically]

[KLSmash]

Hey guys,

my SL Chemistry teacher said she won't teach us the options for the exam (since there isn't enough time in the course to learn them), so we can choose whichever two we want to study. I've been looking at the options, and was wondering if there are any specifically that I should avoid because it's too hard to receive full marks for, or any that you have done and found to be to a piece of cake?

Thanks.

PS: The ones that I'm currently interested in are B) Human biochemistry, D) Medicines & Drugs, E) Environmental Chemistry and F) Food Chemistry.

[Ashika]

I did enviromental chemistry for HL... and it was SOOOO easy that I have no doubt it'll be easier for someone doing SL.

Oh, and I taught that to myself btw

Edited December 26, 2008 by Jewelianna

[Hyperbole]

My teacher said something about the Medicines and Drugs option being waaay too detailed to deal with properly, so she advised us to do something different. We're currently doing Human Biochemistry, and I think we're also going to do Analytical Chemistry. But we totally have the time to do it all in class? I never heard anything about the options being self-taught material!

[Ashika]

That depends entirely on the pace of your class though.

We covered sooo much material in our first year and then focused on organic for 3 months and since there were options for organic we covered that as well, and since enviro is pure memorization we were told to cram it in at some point... simple.

We then spent ages reviewing.

So like I said, options should be taught, but I don't think some of the chemistry ones need to be taught.

Depends on the teacher and the pace of the course

[KLSmash]

The reason why we don't have time within our course to be taught the options, is because my chem teacher teaches us, the HL curriculum basically, during the time given for the SL curriculum (she uses the same notes for her HL class as for her SL). So we end up going more in depth, and everyone ends up doing super well on the exam but it's basically hell all year until then. :\

[Ashika]

Yeah my teacher did the same thing, which is primarily why I chose to do HL chem... I mean, I knew all the material, so why not

[__inthemaking]

I was in chem HL but I did environmental chem for an option and it was super easy. The other option I did was analytical chem and that was okay.

[Hedron123]

I recommend you to choose Medicines and Drugs and Human Biochemistry.

[KLSmash]

I recommend you to choose Medicines and Drugs and Human Biochemistry.

Any reason why in particular? I mean, the course companion my teacher gave us has only a few pages on each option. So wouldn't all the options be relatively easy?

[dexter]

I think you should go for one for SURE which is the enviromental, soo easy i mean its literally read few times before exam and then go for it. That and for any one who does bio HL further human physiology that and enviromental are the "backbone" of options i think any school should do . \

The other thing is either Industrial ( but lot of catlyst and stuff to memorize) OR Biochem STAY AWAY FROM MEDICINE ITS TOO MUCH

BTW im doing enviromental and biochem

[Max]

Avoid Further Organic Chemistry, especially if you are SL. It requires you to know things from HL sections of the syllabus (including pKa and pKb), which obviously indicates a flaw in the syllabus. I would say that it's manageable (I'm studying it right now), but it still is one of the more difficult options.

Edited December 30, 2008 by Max

[Forester]

If you are doing biology as well do:

Human biochemistry, Drugs and Medicine.

If you are not doing biology do:

Human biochemistry, Drugs and Medicine.

My chemistry teacher is an IB examiner of 10 years. She says that each year, the questions for those two options are very predictable. Environmental chemistry is easy, but sometimes they will give you something you have never seen before in past papers.

[Aliquantus]

I am doing Human biochemistry with my class and will later self-study Food chemistry. I find Human Biochemistry quite difficult seeing there is a lot of biology in it (I take physics). Lots of new terms and concepts, and quite much memorization to be honest. Well, its not difficult per se, but there are a lot of new things.

I am having second thoughts about self-studying food chemistry, seeing that it is a new option for this year.. Any thoughts on that? The thought of not having any P3s to practice on slightly scares me.

[KLSmash]

Yeah, that's what kinda makes me want to not do Food Chemistry. But then again, you do have the Specimen Papers for this year, and Food Chem is in it since I've seen questions from it.