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New to Ib, help in IA and others

Im starting my IB diploma at the upcoming September and I would like to know more about the internal assessment

although it might varies from subjects, I would like to know the basic facts, like how many points does it make in our total? etc

I have a few major questions that I would really hope to have a answer to it:

1) Is IB that hard like the others said? (stories about staying all night doing their IAS)

2) how do they come up with the final mark at the end? (average? average+exam?)

3) When do the IAs start? the grade 11 student at my school told me that they haven't start their IAs and they haven't work at night and its kind of chilling

Any reply would be appreciated =)
Sorry for bad grammar :P
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arrowhead
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Original post by sdme87034

1) Is IB that hard like the others said? (stories about staying all night doing their IAS)


Don't fret.

The level of difficulty of the IB depends in large part on your own aptitude and the nature of the subjects you've chosen.

The reason that a lot of students, regardless of intellect, struggle with the IB, is not because of the difficulty of the programme, but due to its sheer volume. Organisation is the key to succeeding in the IB, a close second being self-motivation to finish your assignments well in time.

There are numerous components to the IB. For example, when I was doing the IB, based on my subject choices, I had the standard Extended Essay to write, alongside two World Literature papers, an Oral Presentation and Commentary, a 2,000-word research paper in History, 4 Economics commentaries, numerous labs, and complicated Maths assessment reports, and the ToK presentation and essay. All of this, was over and above the usual homework and assignments I had for high school, as well as university applications, extracurricular activities, etc.

Individually, each of these components is not that hard, I would actually say that taken alone each one is fairly easy to manage and get done. Problems arise when everything is compounded together and you feel like you're being pulled in a million different directions at once and you need to be everywhere.

This is where organisation and self-motivation becomes key. It is also where the age-old adage comes from that the IB is a programme for high-achieving students who can multitask easily.

Here, you must also be honest with yourself, if organisation and self-motivation are not your strengths and you wouldn't consider yourself a high-achieving student in general, then you either have to buck up and turn over a new leaf, or prepare yourself for what may perhaps end up being a painful two-year experience for you.

Original post by sdme87034
2) how do they come up with the final mark at the end? (average? average+exam?)


There is no standard that is the same for all subjects in the IB for internal vs external. When I was doing the IB, the Enlish HL course was the A1 course (which is now A Literature). The divisions were as follows: External Final Paper 1 (25%) + External Final Paper 2 (25%) + World Literature Paper 1 (10%) + World Literature Paper 2 (10%) + Individual Oral Presentation (15%) + Individual Oral Commentary (15%)

The Oral Presentation and Commentary are both conducted by your class teacher(s) during the school year. For the Oral Presentation, your class teacher gives you a mark. At the end, he/she will send the a selection of scores to the IB (the top marks, middle and lowest generally). The IB considers the teacher's markings, if the IB thinks it's fair, the marks stay the same, if they think it's too lenient or too harsh, the IB reduces or boosts the entire class' grades for the Oral Presentation.

The Oral Commentary, on the other hand, is conducted internally, and recorded. The recording is then passed on to external markers who give you a grade. Similarly, the World Literature Paper (which is now the Works In Translation in the new syllabus) is marked externally (I believe).

So technically, for English, you have an internal assessment that is externally moderated - the IOP. And then you have internal assessments that are externally marked - IOC, WLs/WIT. Then, you have final exams that are obviously marker externally as well - English Papers 1 and 2.

However, the system can be substantially different for other subjects. In History HL, for example, the Internal Assessment is a single 2,000-word research paper that counts for 20% of your overall grade, then History Paper 1 is 20%, Paper 2 is 25% and Paper 3 is 35%. The Internal Assessment (IA) is externally moderated (like the English IOP).

For Economics HL, you have Papers 1, 2 and 3 for 20%, 20% and 40% respectively, and the IA is externally moderated for 20%. Seems the same, but the IA here is actually a portfolio of four written commentaries, making it quite different from History HL.

Original post by sdme87034
3) When do the IAs start? the grade 11 student at my school told me that they haven't start their IAs and they haven't work at night and its kind of chilling


Your school/subject teachers set the curriculum for your school and decide how things are done. Our English teacher, for example, divided things up by the 4 terms that we had in IB. So Term 1 was the IOP, Term 2 was the World Lit (WIT) Papers, Term 3 was the IOC, and Term 4 was preparation for Papers 1 and 2, but primarily Paper 2 (because we had to read a bunch of books for it, while Paper 1 was an unseen commentary).

This is not a standard formula that is utilised by all IB schools the world-over in uniformity. Each school follows a format that they think works best. Like for History HL, we started working on our IAs halfway through Term 1 of IB1 and submitted first drafts by the end of Term 1. Then submitted modified "final" drafts at the end of IB1. And then continued to work on them independently throughout IB2. Friends of mine doing History HL at other schools didn't start their IAs until well into their IB2s.

We did 1 Maths IA for 'practice' in IB1 and then did 2 formal Maths IAs in Terms 1 and 2 of IB2.

Wow, that was a long-winded response, but I hope you can glean some useful information from all of that.

Arrowhead.

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