Bad IA marks yet excellent external marks

[missbrokensmile]

I hope there isn't already a thread like this...

Anyway, if you get bad IA marks, ie. 4 or 5, but get really good external marks, ie. 7. Is it still possible to get 40+ for your IB?

[Sandwich]

*shrug* It really depends on how badly you do in your IAs and whether you can tally those same IAs with good examination marks. If you get a 4 in something as an IA, you're unlikely to ever get a 7. Possibly if you do crazy well in your exam and get a 5 in your IA. Really, though, you should view IAs just like exams -- if you do badly in one paper, you're going to ruin your overall marks. Exactly the same is true for the IA.

You should look to your IA mark as a chance to rescue your grade, not as something which has to be overcome. Always try as hard as possible in IAs. You have a reasonably leisurely period of time to complete them in, and, unlike exams, a good chance to learn what's going wrong before it happens

I know some of my grades (well... just Chemistry) were screwed up by having very bad guidance and consequently poor IA marks. Equally IA grades totally saved me (e.g. Maths!). Anybody who overlooks the importance of IAs is a fool, IMO. Always try your hardest for them, even if it means skipping some school to finish them!

[__inthemaking]

Yes, provided that you do well (ie. IA and exams are 6/7) in the majority of your subjects. I got 5 on my English IAs and 5 on the exam, ended up with 5 in English but still 40+ points overall. What saved me was that I got 6/7 in both IAs and exams for the rest of my subjects, so that helped make up for my English mark.

[missbrokensmile]

That makes me sound a little more hopeful I think I could get 7's for all my external exams, which will hopefully balance out my bad IAs. Not all my IAs are bad. For my Chemistry, Biology and Mandarin IAs, I'm pretty sure I've got a 7 for all of them. It's just the English, Maths and History IAs that I might get a 4 or 5 for. I might be able to rescue Maths and possibly English (if I do well on the Oral Commentary that is, I didn't do too well on the Oral Presentation and World Lit). History I have no chance of fixing up. I think I've got a 4 for that (or if I'm lucky, 5). Would that 4 for history and maybe 4 or 5 for English drag me down?

Anyway, thanks for the input

Also, just a question. Are the November grade boundaries higher than the May ones? My reasoning is this... I know a lot of countries participate in the May exam, but the US are a large proportion of this, aren't they? And for them, isn't the SAT the deciding factor for whether you get into uni? I heard that even if you don't do that well in your IB, you get credits for it, and as long as you do well in the SATs, you can gain a spot in uni. So, doesn't that mean some American students place IB on the back burner? My teacher is a marker for the IB, and she gets papers from the US and apparently (according to her) they aren't done that well.

Anyway, so doesn't that mean that all the May grade boundaries get pulled down? Whereas the November ones are a little higher? And therefore I should be looking at the November 2009 grade boundaries to gauge an approximate, rather than the May 2010?

[Sandwich]

I don't think you get a November/May divide with grade distribution because the way they work out the grades is based on pre-determined mark boundary for each grade. It's not one of those curve things where they say "the top X% will get a 7, the next X% will get a 6 etc.". So the grade boundaries shouldn't vary any more significantly for November v.s. May than they do just between different years for May.

[Snoopdog]

Hii guys i just finished my IB economics SL exam which will determine my predicteds. However, i ****ed up paper 1 and paper 2 i got 21 out of 40 while paper 1 was 10 out of 25. My IA I got 8 out of 14 does this mean i will get an overall 5? 

Percentage wise paper 1 was 40 paper 2 was 52 and IA was 57. Please help me find hope. 

 

Thanks!