is IB German B Standard too hard?

srsthsr

2

I got a B in my GCSE for German so is German B Standard too hard for me? should I do Abinitio? Thanks alot! :woo:

Reply 1

G O D I V A

11

srsthsr

I got a B in my GCSE for German so is German B Standard too hard for me? should I do Abinitio? Thanks alot! :woo:

Unless you find german tough or want to learn a new language then do ab initio. The problem with this however is that they try to cram about 3 years worth of a language (inlcuding gcse content + more) in about 2 years and of course delivered in IB style. Which I've heard is tough, is doable of course.

B for Gcse german isnt bad and easily good enough for B Standard. I got A for my French GCSE and I did French B Standard and got a 6 in the end so it is possible for you.

Reply 2

srsthsr

OP

2

G O D I V A

Unless you find german tough or want to learn a new language then do ab initio. The problem with this however is that they try to cram about 3 years worth of a language (inlcuding gcse content + more) in about 2 years and of course delivered in IB style. Which I've heard is tough, is doable of course.

B for Gcse german isnt bad and easily good enough for B Standard. I got A for my French GCSE and I did French B Standard and got a 6 in the end so it is possible for you.

Alright then! thanks, btw do you know what content there is? i mean like... do we have to do essays? etc etc

Reply 3

G O D I V A

11

srsthsr

Alright then! thanks, btw do you know what content there is? i mean like... do we have to do essays? etc etc

I cant say for german since i did french, but perhaps all B is the same.

For French you definitely do a lot of oral exercises, both by yourself and in groups because orals do count towards your final mark. You also do a lot of essay writing because paper 2 they give you a few scenarios and you have to write a response, but in correct style, format, etc like either a letter to an editor or a journal diary or a speech, etc etc. And thus for this you learn new tenses, build on older tenses, new vocab, etc etc.

Once again, thats what happened to me for French, cant say for sure if its the same in German

Reply 4

srsthsr

OP

2

thankyou very much :smile:

Reply 5

Livilah

I wouldn't do ab initio if you want universities to recognise the qualification. They will see that you have done the GCSE and think you just took the easy route by doing ab initio. B standard really isn't that hard. I did German B HL this year and managed to get a 6 with not too much effort. Fair enough, I had an A* at GCSE, but I did that a year before the IB course started, so had a whole year without studying any German at all.

The exams for standard goes like this:
Oral - 1 score for interactive orals (group discussion etc). My teacher just did this from our participation in lessons.
1 score for a formal oral presentation. You prepare a topic and talk about it, then have a conversation about something to do with it and then about something completely random. I talked about Anne Frank and then we discussed her writing style and my trip to Berlin last year. (At standard you can get away with talking about your interests or a newspaper article etc, it just has to relate to Germany)

Reading/Writing - 2 exams. 1 r/w paper that has about 5 texts to read, one of which is usually fictional, and then answer questions about. There is a short (50ish words) essay style thing to write at the end too, usually in letter format.
1 writing paper, you write 1 essay (at SL I think it's 250 words) chosen from a list of questions that cover the main topics you will have studied. I wrote an article encouraging people to visit Cologne Cathedral (you could choose anywhere) because I happened to know a lot of the facts and vocab because that was what I had used for my mock oral.

As you can see, there is not too scary a jump from GCSE and I am sure you will be fine doing B :smile:

Feel free to ask me if you want anymore info/help.

Reply 6

uxue06

1

I have been doing German since Year 7 but I don't have the level to write anything or read a text understanding everything. I am in IG1 and I need to take the language acquisition as a HL. Would you recommend me to take German? Wow sorry you wrote this 11 years ago so you probably won't answer.

is IB German B Standard too hard?

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