Susana Groot and Sofia Sasse
Introduction
Approaching the end of this school year all students are rising up and entering new grade levels. These new changes are definitely going to promote stress, especially on big changes, such as moving up into middle school or finally getting into high school, and maybe the most stressful, entering the IB years, the 2 final years of your high school career. We also had all of this stress, and after concluding half of our IB programs, we have some knowledge to pass down to the next generations who share the same problems! Below you will find a paragraph (or more!) per subject and IB exams filled with things that we all wish we had known before, take a look at these tips and we hope that you are able to use them and succeed in these following two years!
EE’s and IA’s
What is the EE?
The EE, Extended Essay, is an external essay composed of a research question, data collection, and analysis. In total, to write the EE you will have 1 year, from the end of semester 1 to semester 3 (first semester of grade 11, to first semester of grade 12.) You can write an EE in any subject in school, it is usually advised that you choose a subject you take, or you can create a mixture of subjects and have a world studies essay. If you choose a science-related subject, there are two options to choose from, lab work for data collection, or data-based research. In data-based research, extensive research must be done and analyzed, for Lab based research, research outside the lab must be done along with in-lab experiments and analysis, if you have chosen to take more than one science for IB, lab base research is not suggested as you will be already doing two (probably) lab-based IA’s.
To initiate the EE, you will need to think of a topic of interest, something of value and importance to the world, then you should complete brief research on this topic to have a larger scope of understanding. Finally, you will have a rough draft of a research question. This question, along with some of your knowledge and the relevance of the topic to the world, will be put into a form. This form you will hand to the teacher you want to be your supervisor. The supervisor is an important part of the EE, as they will be the one to guide you through the entire process, choose someone that you have a good relationship with, and who you trust will be able to help you in this process.
The biggest hint I can give you about EE, do everything early. If you’re writing and research teacher didn’t tell you to start, do! Having the most work done is the best
As soon as your proposal for the EE is approved, start your in-depth research, and take notes of important things to discuss while you read your support works. Use JSTOR (your school email gives you access!) to find research papers, they are excellent! Start creating your outline already, it can be rough, it’s only supposed to organize your thoughts!
Have meetings with your advisor and take notes, their ideas are helpful. Also, try to work on it a little bit every day instead of writing it on the day it’s due, and spend 9 hours on it like I did! Balance is the key to success when it comes to the EE! Balance your life with the academic, remember to take breaks from this essay, it is long and tiring.
The IA’s
The IA’s (internal assessment) are a short form of the EE, one of each will be written for all subjects except for Language courses (you will do an IO instead) these research essays are a lot shorter than an EE (1200–3000 words depending on the subject) The best advice for the AI is to look at the syllabus of the class, and during the year take notice on your favorite units, pay attention to labs done in class and what can be changed about them to produce an AI. whenever you have a research question, don’t take too long to source-read, annotate, and write your outlines
Chemistry
The biggest thing about chemistry is the difference between 10th to IB. Most people enjoy chemistry in 10th grade, but in the IB the content is so much more in-depth and fast-paced, and more studying at home is advised. Therefore, do not take Chemistry just because you are good at it in 10th grade. Make sure it is useful to you, actually like it, and really are good at it! During class, take notes. Don’t just copy from the slides, because you already have that; take notes of what the teacher is explaining and examples! Annotate formulas, and describe what is happening and for what reason. Pay attention in class, don’t torture your short after-school hours with chemistry, just pay attention and review before tests rather than spending hours studying.
Biology
Biology is not just memorizing, don’t get me wrong there is a lot of it, but you need to understand all of the processes as well! Interpretation is really important and good luck with data-based questions! The hardest thing about bio is mark-scheme, if you don’t have the exact thing that IB is asking for in your answers, you will lose points and this will greatly affect your grade, be careful! The biggest difference between HL and SL is the amount of content! While in SL you will learn the outcome, in HL the entire process must be learned. This has pros and cons, as in one you need to memorize and in the latter, you need to truly understand!
Portuguese
“Before starting Portuguese HL, I wish I had known that just reading the books would not be enough. In order to have better results earlier, I would have noted down key moments, symbols, and other instances of figurative language and literary devices. Overall, Portuguese HL is not a difficult subject and does not stray away too much from the SL content. To be successful, pay attention to your readings and know how to connect it with other literature shown in class.” – Vinicius Angeloni
BP
Pay attention, it is easy to get distracted! But you need to pay attention and take notes to do well on exams! Biggest hint, if you had no time to study go to YouTube and search “(name of the unit) ENEM” and you will find good short videos that can help you with last-minute information! Take notes of these videos/classes and keep them for the final exams!
Math AA SL
Do Edpuzzles (puzzles count for a trade in the semester exams: 10 Edpuzzles done, you can use the final exam grade for a test; 20 done, you can substitute 2 tests and if you have done 30 you can substitute all of them!) and really try to ask questions that you have.
Math AA HL
“If you are considering taking math HL I honestly recommend you go through with it if you 1. Really, I mean REALLY, like math; 2. You need it to get into the course you want to study in college; or 3. You are really, I mean REALLY good at math, in the sense that 10th-grade math was something you practically already knew. Overall this math requires a lot of effort, which makes you have to make sacrifices to prioritize it. It is not impossible, but it sure does take a lot mentally and emotionally out of a person.” – Juliana Dias
Math AP SL
“Math AP is not as easy as everyone thinks. It is, obviously, easier than Math AA, but it is confusing since we solve and learn a lot of word problems, which sometimes can be hard to understand and comprehend. One thing that I wish I had known before IB was the complete syllabus that Math AP offers for the students, because not that I would take Math AA, but I would be more prepared and not frightened by all the word problems. Also, the summatives are different from the mocks, so a suggestion would be to study everything and solve exercises from the book because the mock is way easier than the tests. But in general, Math AP is not a course to increase your grade, but it is easier than Math AA and the teacher is really good.” – Mirella Carvalho
Geography
“I believe that the key to doing well in IB geography is keeping track of your case studies. Although obviously fundamentally understanding the concepts you are learning is of the utmost importance, if you do not have the proper case studies to back it up then your arguments in any of your papers become extremely weak. Although the teacher can help with that, it is nice to have a document where you are able to keep track of all the important case studies that you learn.
Additionally, it is very important that people understand the difference between HL and SL geography, as it varies much more in comparison to other subjects. For the languages for example, you might read a couple more books or write an extra essay, however, for geography, it includes a full three more core topics that you have to learn and nearly double the amount of testing time in the official IB tests. Because of this, if geography is not central to whatever you want to study in college, I would recommend not doing HL if there are alternative choices.” -Igor Toribio
Physics
“Physics is an interesting subject, it includes a lot less content than biology or chemistry, but at the same time is a lot more complex and difficult than the other ones at times as well. Even though I knew I wanted to do Physics HL, my advice for those who want to do Physics but don’t know if they should do HL or SL is to do HL. Most of my class is HL, with only one SL and honestly, it’s not that different. Physics is a sink or swim course, I wish I found that out sooner because it’s important to understand that sometimes you’ll have to go back and review the same problems over and over until you truly understand the concept, and sometimes whatever you study won’t be enough. Physics isn’t just the content, but your actual math and logic skills are being used, so memorizing isn’t really a strong skill here. The one thing I wish I started doing from ground zero though was to not only take notes on everything Takeuti says but also really ask myself if I understand before moving on. And last thing, it’s actually pretty normal to have an overall Physics grade below an eighty, so don’t freak out when you get your first bad grade, sometimes you’ll just have to work harder to get a moderately better grade than that one.” – Nadia Freitas
Business
“It is fun and engaging if you are interested in business. It is difficult to do bad if you genuinely like business; it is hard if you have no interest in it. There’s a lot of interesting things you can learn about and apply to real life. You can imagine applying concepts you learn in class in real life, unlike subjects like math. There is math involved, but it is pretty basic and formulaic, so you don’t have to worry too much about it. The style of the class allows you to do a lot of the work in class, but people who procrastinate and let projects build up have a hard time catching up later. The projects aren’t necessarily difficult, but they are time-consuming.” – Debora Sabino
TOK
Try to enjoy TOK. It’s a little boring, and you won’t always know the answers, but it gets easier if you pay attention and take notes. Class discussions are fun, if your teacher asks the right questions, and your assignments will always be easier if you actually try to participate. Have pity on your teacher; chances are, they probably aren’t enjoying teaching TOK just as much as you don’t enjoy learning it, especially if no one participates. You’ll hear a lot of bad things about TOK; most of it is true, but try not to let that interfere with your first impressions of it. I won’t say it’s the most fun class in the world, but it can be almost fun if you try hard enough.
Your TOK Exhibition is the only important thing you’ll do in your Junior year. There are around 20-30 prompts you have to choose from, and then you’ll choose 3 objects to answer that prompt. People find it difficult, but again, it’s a lot easier if you pay attention. You will learn how to think in the TOK language, and the objects will come to mind sooner or later. Don’t worry too much about TOK: it’s not as bad as people say it is.
History
History is my favorite subject; it is also the hardest. It is the hardest and you’ll have to get the highest scores to get a seven. Unlike subjects like Chemistry or Physics, to get a seven you’ll need consistent 95’s and above, and it is perhaps the hardest set of essays you’ll write, if you choose to do History HL. On your IB exams, a total of 6 essays will be written just on history–3 essays for Paper 3, 2 essays for Paper 2, and 1 essay for Paper 1. It is a lot of writing, and content that almost seems unending: Civil Rights, every single authoritarian state, the Cold War. If you have trouble with memorization, I’ll say: this is not the HL for you.
In spite of this, though, it is the most interesting class I have. The level of depth we reach in analyzing social and economic policies of every single authoritarian leader, along with learning about different participants in Civil Rights, I cannot stress enough how much I adore history, as someone who already loves history; however, I emphasize how much you should not do history if you do not already love it. It is too much work and too much suffering for something you are not passionate about. Also, your teacher will like you better if you’re actually interested in their classes and do the readings.
The IA for History is very fun; personally, I had more fun writing it than I did my EE–I went almost 1,000 words over the word limit because of how interesting it was. You’ll have a lot of time, but I implore you to start as soon as you get the assignment, especially since you might change your question or your focus a few times while you do your research. Pick something you like! It doesn’t have to be extremely political or difficult, or even easy. The best IA’s are the ones that are done with a lot of love. It makes it a million times easier to finish your essay if you genuinely love what you’re researching.
Also, we apparently are only tested on about 20% of the knowledge we acquire during the course, but are still required to learn all of it, since we have no idea what will be on the IB exams; this is a testament to the truly gigantic amount of content you’ll have to learn.
English
English is essentially a professional yapping class. For essays, it is easy to pass, but extremely difficult to get an almost perfect score, which is what you need to get a 7. Honestly, I see a really big connection between global issues and case studies we learn about in Global Politics; if you’re thinking about doing English and Global Politics HL, I definitely recommend it! Every single essay you write will have to be related to capitalism, or women’s rights, or oppression, or something along those lines.
My biggest tip is: read attentively, take notes, and listen to what your teacher has to say during class discussions. Read books with global issues in mind, and how you’ll relate the book to a variety of different issues pertinent to society. Don’t read the book solely for reading it; instead, focus on how you’ll write about it and what larger themes you can connect it to.
English essays are a gamble. Either you do really good or painfully average, no in between.
Global Politics
Every time I have a Global Politics class, it feels like I get smarter. It is incredibly helpful to understand why certain things happen, or why certain decisions were made. It’s very difficult, don’t get me wrong, but it is a class that you can do even if you don’t want to do something related to Politics in University and in the future. It’s interesting, and I feel it makes us more aware of things going on in our community and in the world. You’ll work on a lot of Case Studies, but, for the most part, most of them are very interesting.
Just like History, you’ll write a lot of essays. The essays you’ll write in Global Politics are not the most difficult, and there is less content for you to memorize. There isn’t a Paper 3, but there is an Engagement Activity, which means you’ll need to conduct interviews about a problem in your community, which is one of the most time-consuming projects you’ll have to do. It is really fun, though!
EAC PRESS 