IB Students: What are your extended essay topics? Watch

(Original post by Jonatan)
Ok, peopel. 4000 words is teh MAXIMUM If you write more than this you may get 0 on one of the criteria because you exceeded the wordcount. The minimum number of words depends on the subject. In mathematics, ad sciences, they dont care but you will need at least 2500 in order to cover all the criteria.

actually, the penultimate limit is 4200 which is lucky for me since mine was about 4100! It was in english A1, by the way

(Original post by grace)
actually, the penultimate limit is 4200 which is lucky for me since mine was about 4100! It was in english A1, by the way

What we were told is that if you write more than 4000 words, you're taking your chances with the examiners: they don't have to read any more than 4000.

Plus, my English teacher who is an examiner said that if he's bored with an essay, he's not going to read more than that. People should learn better editing skills.

(Original post by silltilly)
I did an extended essay in Maths which was cool because hardly anyone does that. They don't expect all that much from you. In fact, they don't care if you write about 1000 words cos it's mainly formulae and stuff anyway.

I did mine on Vedic Mathematics (Indian Mathematics). I proved some theories including their method for doing square root by hand. It didn't involve too much time and effort actually. All I did was spend a couple of sleepless nights proving theories and then I just had to write it up.

Did anyone else do their extended essay in Maths? What did you do it in?

I did mine in maths. Well, actually it was sort of maths/econ but I signed it up as maths. I investigated the uses/applicability of game theory in real-life situations. Was sort of fun to do, not sure if the maths content was advanced enough to get top grade though. This is sorta stupid, since I could have easily used much more advanced mathematical concepts but my supervisor told me that i couldnt expect the examiner to know anything at all about game theory. So I was stuck going through basic stuff such as randomised/dominant strategies and simple iteration...still happy with the result though. Would be cool if I could get to read yours, sounds interesting...

(Original post by burje-t)
I did mine in maths. Well, actually it was sort of maths/econ but I signed it up as maths. I investigated the uses/applicability of game theory in real-life situations. Was sort of fun to do, not sure if the maths content was advanced enough to get top grade though. This is sorta stupid, since I could have easily used much more advanced mathematical concepts but my supervisor told me that i couldnt expect the examiner to know anything at all about game theory. So I was stuck going through basic stuff such as randomised/dominant strategies and simple iteration...still happy with the result though. Would be cool if I could get to read yours, sounds interesting...

That's really cool. I actually very nearly did mine on game theory. I was afraid that I wouldn't understand it well enough to explain it to someone who would probably know it better than me. That's why I chose to do mine in Vedic Mathematics. I thought that the examiner might not know very much about it, so they might have thought I was being brave and original. Well, I can but hope.

Anyways yours sounds interesting, it would be cool to read each others'.

(Original post by DrSoySauce)
What we were told is that if you write more than 4000 words, you're taking your chances with the examiners: they don't have to read any more than 4000.

Plus, my English teacher who is an examiner said that if he's bored with an essay, he's not going to read more than that. People should learn better editing skills.

well my teacher showed me the thing in the vade mecum so i'm hoping it's correct?! Anyway, hopefully the examiner won't be bored with my essay and will WANT to read on! even if he doesn't, it's only 100 words, that's like what, one paragraph?

(Original post by grace)
well my teacher showed me the thing in the vade mecum so i'm hoping it's correct?! Anyway, hopefully the examiner won't be bored with my essay and will WANT to read on! even if he doesn't, it's only 100 words, that's like what, one paragraph?

You are not penalised before you exceed 4200, but the examiner is not required to read more than 4000. Also, they may get annoyed if you are pushing the limits.

Hey, Im new on this forum and Im in my second year of my IB, so that means I have to turn in my essay at the end of the year (I feel the stresss, heheh). I went to the US virgin islands to do a volunteer work on leatherback turtles, I have information but it is quite irrelevant, such as time of viewing a turtle, for how many years has it been nesting, and in which location of the beach did it nest. However, I cannot come up with a title for my extended essay. If you have any ideas please help.

(Original post by ~*Jemma*~)
hey, im just begining to think about my extened essay, cos im in the 1st year of the IB, i am proably going to do it in ITGS, but i want to include sumthin of economics in it too, got any ideas? thanks..

I am in first year IB too, but the teachers are all the talking about this ****ing extended essay. I will write mine one for sure in german and I think about Hitler. lol

I'm in my first year of IB but I'm kind of worried about my extended essay because the teachers haven't said ANYTHING about it so far.

What worries me more is that my school is new to IB. By the by, is the Vade Mecum a list of requirements? Which site can I get one for my EE?

My extended essay topic is; the effect of altitude on the subdivisions of a human's lung volume

(Original post by porto-gal)
Mine somehow feels a bit out of place, it is about the Relationship Between Soil Properties and the Development of Grape Vines,their Yield and Wine Quality...it involves a bit of winetasting!

LOL!!!! Im portuguese so its funny that you did it about wine tasting since we all know the portuguese love their wine! Anyway, mine had to do with Portuguese history. Basically that the Portuguese domination of the Age of Exploration led to their domination of trade as well.

I did mine in English A1 on apocalypse references in war poetry...i used three short poems by Yeats, Blake, and Rosenberg, which apparently makes it to focused for 4,000 words...but i really was interested in the topic. Can you believe they expect so much effort for a couple of points that most universities don't include in the total anyway???

(Original post by monel)
But i want to do a science for my extended essay. it has nothing to do with my normal science ib programme, but i just want to do a science for my extended essay...

Hi i did do mine in science - my title was "What are the effects of nitrogen deficiency on pea growth inoculated with rizobium bacteria?" The simple virsion is what happens when pea plants are capable of producing their own bacteria and you don't give them any in their food. THis was a very long and stressfull process for me with two lab experiments that took place. THe first lot of plants i worked with died and the second lot did not behave very well - to tell you the truth the title is manipulated because i forgot that peas could create their own nitrogen even if it wasn't present, but the experiment was really interesting because the plants that had sufficient nitrogen in the soil did not produce nodules on the root and thoes that had no nitrogen did, the ones with nitrogen in the soil also appeared to start to die earlier than the other plants - my theory was nitrogen overload.

Working with plants for a project is hard work and they do have a tendancy to die if you don't care for them so only work with them if you know exactly what you are doing - i was collecting my results three weeks before the deadline due to the death of my first batch!!

Having medical orientated projects are not favoured by the IB according to my teacher - you can't do an experiment because it is unethical in most instances as you would be working with potentially dangerous material. You therefore have to work with previously collected data and manipulate it in an origional way. If you know where to get the data then great, but i would consult the VM and you IB coordinator first. GOOD LUCK

hey.

First I wanted to do mine in english but after reading the first page I was like....naaaaaah!
So I did it in German instead on the Swiss South African relations economic and political relations during Apartheid. I take German A2 at IB level, but since there's no A2category for the IB EE in languages, it gets marked as a B language instead

am i really the only one doin EE in maths? My title is: "How 2 write Ana with mathematical functions?" - it was goddamn tough and i had no literature at all. Our official deadline was to hand it in till Decembre 24th, but then we (except 2 folks) spread it waaaaaay till end of February...

Hey, I did mine in Physics...on Superconductivity...

I made a superconductor and tested it to find its critical temperature...it was quite good fun actually!!

u guys are gonna laugh at mine..it was a last minute kinda thing..had like a week to do it till the deadline..so i did "how pressure in the tyres of a bike affect the braking distance"..did it in one night..(im only going for a c..)

"Milton was of the Devil's Party." To what extent is William Blake's reading of John Milton's Paradise Lost an accurate one?

(Original post by Guido)
Hey, I did mine in Physics...on Superconductivity...

I made a superconductor and tested it to find its critical temperature...it was quite good fun actually!!

Do you still have yoru notes? I would want to try that as well some day Hmm, it would be fun to use a superconducting ring in my experiment and see how that affects the levitation height...

Did mine in biology cross between a lab report and a scientific paper- I'm happy with it, tabulating the results of my research took forever- had 908 questionaires to put into excel!!Fun- Not! But it was worth it in the end- was a topic I'm interested in now ur going to laugh " incidence of lefthandedness at my school" Bummer part was best part of papers written on left handedness were ancient or in German- technical german :s