IB Exams

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Virginia
21

<p>parekhsr, it's very important to look up individually for every college you are interested in their policy on IB credit. Just go to the school's website and search for IB. Some schools like Va Tech give credit even for SL exams. Most don't and some only take 7's on HL (which is absolutely ridiculous since supposedly only 2% of the world gets 7's on HL exam). One advice I got from a past IB student was "remember, you can always sleep when you are dead" Hahah...I guess it depends on your school but sometimes the work is A LOT. Make sure you do well on your IA's...20% doesn't sound like a lot but it's the one thing you can ensure you do right before exam day. If you are aiming for a 6 or 7, those 20% become very important. (for some subjects IA's count more or less)</p>

<p>Also, do your EE...really do it. At my school many BSed it. Once again, try to get some bonus points with the EE/ToK combo. You can always use some help.</p>

<p>Oh, another thing. We did our World LIt papers at the end of Junior Year. Now, I htought that was messed up to give it to us after AP's and some IB exams. THus, many didn't take them seriously and slacked through the process. Last year's class suffered majorly by low world lit papers. So take that into consideration. Many ppl ended up with 4's somehow on English HL when they were expecting at least a 6.</p>

<p>WlbrgRvr89 , there is a group on facebook..something like "If your Ap class is "killing you" come take an IB one" Hahaha...</p>

22

<p>really only 2% get 7's on HL's? Thats crazy i had no idea. I thought it was about 15% for each one. meh, I guss I won't be expecting any 7's on my HL's.</p>

<p>The only immediately tangible advantage of IB that I can see (that is, aside from the stronger preparation) is that there are AP classes that mirror most of the IB classes and you can sometimes get double credit. Through our IB Hitstory HL you can get credit for APUS and the IB exam and AP Euro which comes out.... a crapton of credits at uva. Same goes for math HL. 8 credits for a4/5 of APcalcBC and 8 more for a 5/6/7 on HL Math. And yes, they are listed as different classes so you DO get the credit for both of them (though math and history go down as something like 200T).</p>

<p>Ha, yeah I know a Josh that was there this summer but I dont remember his last name. H sounds right. Was he in the Summer Residential Gov School program? If he was tell him Brielin (pronounced bree-lyn) says hi. We had too much fun this summer but I haven't talked to him in ages!</p>

<p>anyways. HL History starts tommorow so I better go study if I want that 7...</p>

23

<p>Ah for history paper one we covered Stalin a lot, the Cold War oen is what I am goign for. For paper two I am looking at both world wars causes and effects and the vietnam war as backup. for paper three its mostly old stuff from apus last year, AoC, Civil War, and lots of Cold War...</p>

24

<p>They have been drilling us that 2% fact ever since freshman year here at my school. I guess they were trying to inspire us to study harder but thats one scary thought. Today, our IB coordinator started the history HL exam by stating that History HL is one of the subjects with the poorest worldwide scores. Great..good to know right before the test...which went pretty well over here :)</p>

<p>For paper 3, I am studing Italy and and hoping for Stalin to reappear tomorrow :D</p>

25

<p>Oh my God, did you notice that the questions for paper two today were the EXACT same questions as the 2005 exam?????? Literally word for word the same questions, every question. If your teacher has past exam questions ask to see them, you will be amazed.</p>

<p>For paper three I am also hoping for some Stalin, and studying a lot of other Cold War things, as well as the early American government and Civil War. Man, I guess I am going have to find some stats as to who gets what on each part. I didn't think my history exam went bad at all, I thought I was fairly well prepared. I answered Part 1 question 3, and part 5, question 21. For the DBQ I did number A. I wrote about three pages for paper 1 and about 5 for paper two (all front and back except for the last page). I'm not tooooo worried about tomorrow, but you never know, I could get unlucky.</p>

26

<p>although i've never taken an IB class (and i am skeptical on how difficult people make it sound) if its so bad, and the pay off isn't worth it...why not just take AP classes if they're so much easier...</p>

27

<p>Well, there are things that make it worth it. I did have a lot of fun doing my EE, and I think my understanding of history and English go well beyond what I would have learned in an AP class. There comes a point were its not about getting good grades and get credit for them, its about learning. As a really science and math oriented person I wouldn't given near the attention to English and History if they weren't such an integral part of IB and through that I realized how much I actually love those subjects and that I actually am a strong liberal arts student if I put my mind to it, and that I also really enjoy it.</p>

<p>In addition, in my town they kind of con you into it. I when I was in middle school I was told it was the hardest possible thing you could do as a high schooler, the drop out rate is x percent and so on, so i saw it as a challenge I wanted to tackle. The IB program also recruited from the middle school a lot more than our local gov school, so they kind of shut out that option. We were also told how much better IB is than AP, and only came to realize later that the benefits are lesser. At that point, you don't want to get out, and by that point the above good things had started to manifest themselves.</p>

<p>Each person has to decide on their own if its worth it or not. For a lot of people it itsn't but I thought it was. I am the gov school now taking classes as well and I have taken more AP classes than most people that consider themselves 'AP students' so I got the experience of both (at the cost of having the workload of both).</p>

28

<p>BGjeez,
That's very true, thanks for the advice. I actually did look into some colleges to see if they would give credit for the IB courses offered in my school. My number one choice is VCU (gmed), if you're familiar with this school's credidation offers. I also have some ex-IB relatives that advised me of the same thing you did: the EE and IA's. IB exams really don't concern me right at this moment, although im getting pleasure out of seeing my senior friends that are sufferening from them, but i'm sure you'll hear from me when i do take them. Thanks for the advice though. :-)</p>

<p>ehiunno,
That is very interesting about getting double credit for IB classes by getting credit for the mirroring AP courses. How would one go about getting this credit though? Do you just take the AP exam after finishing the corresponding IB course?</p>

<p>Also,
For anyone that is familiar with the IB programs in highschools, has anyone heard of IB schools losing accreditation? There is a rumor in my school that it is going to lose it and I actually think its bizarre. Please share, thanks.</p>

29

<p>
[quote]
why not just take AP classes if they're so much easier...

[/quote]
</p>

<p>My school doesn't have them. </p>

<p>IB schools can lose accredition, but they don't usually. It's not usually a case of poor exam results. They'd have to knowingly be found in violation of the conduct regulations, usually. I'm sure it happens but it's not all that common. Obviously most coordinators take all the details very seriously and attempt to follow procedure to a letter. If it's just a rumor at this point, and your school or teachers haven't said anything, it's probably just some seniors messing around and making up drama.</p>

30

<p>well, it may be only for my school, but my IB coordinator likes to sign us up for as many exams as possible, AP's and IB's to raise our Newsweek ranking (it used to be something like 40, now I think were in the 60's-70's). I could go on a ten hour rant about why I think this is the WORST IDEA EVER, but for now I'll just talk about the positives.</p>

<p>For HL history as an example. The first year of HL history at our school is basically just APUS followed by Latin American studies after the exam, which prepares us for paper three of the IB HL exam and allows us to take the APUS exam. In senior year, we concentrate on the European aspects of the 1st and second world wars, followed by the origins of the cold war and stalin in order to prepare for papers 1 and 2. This covers about half of the AP Euro exam, so we spend some time covering other topics in AP Euro to prepare for that. That way through HL history we are prepared for APUS, APEuro, and IB HL Hist. at most schools these give credit for three (or more, us often gives 8 credits) classes.</p>

<p>For HL math, we spend the first year studying what is basically calcBC, then in senior year we cover addition topics such as vertors, probability, and further diffq's. That way we study for APBC and IB HL Math.</p>

<p>For HL English, its a little different. From my perspective, IB HL English prepares you just as well if not better for the AP English exams as the AP classes. The focus is slightly different but AP11 and AP12 are both in the HL Eng curriculum. That usually doesn't work out for double credit because one of the ap's gives the same credit as the IB.</p>

<p>It works for pretty much everything. IB Physics is really close to AP phyiscs, the language ones are similar, etc, but there are some differences that have to be made up through self study if your school doesn't work towards it. So I would look at the curricula for the mirroring classes to see what fits, and ask your councilor to sign you up for the extra exams.</p>

<p>The way I look at it is this, it may be extra work, but at UVa with a 4 on US history, a 4 on Euro hist., and a 6 on HL Hist you can get 8+6+3=17 credits. With a 7 on Hist, that becomes 8+6+6=20 credits, for one class!!! For English , you get 3+3=6 credits for a 5 and a 5,6,7 or a 5 and a 4/5. For math, you can get credit for math 131, 132, and math 200t for a total of 11 credits. Of course, those are the maximum amounts of credit, I know I didn't ace every exam, but I should be near the entering credit limit for first years if I do well this week, that might be above average but its not impossible.</p>

<p>yay IB, ew... I never said that</p>

31

<p>
[quote]
really only 2% get 7's on HL's? Thats crazy i had no idea. I thought it was about 15% for each one. meh, I guss I won't be expecting any 7's on my HL's.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I think it's in the 4-5% range, but yes, 7's are very very hard to get. And as I'm sure you know, the tests are curved internationally.</p>

<p>/May '04</p>

32

<p>haha, yeah i did some searching to try to find the IB grade distribution. One link actually turned up a distribution for my school from 2005 and it was scary. Then again, the students in my IB program are not nearly as strong as a lot of kids in the program but we usually have a few kids who are brilliant. We still only had 3 7's on english out of 46, no 6's or 7's on history, no 6's or 7's on math, and some other embarrassingly terrible scores. ha, i can't wait till july</p>

33

<p>Does anyone know how IBO is going to deal with the History HL Paper 2 deal. I am sure you know by now that they used the exactly the same exam as the one from 2005 and since anyone can buy the old one and the markscheme on the IBO website...yea...not cool. Has your IB Coordinator said anything?</p>

34

<p>haha, look at my post #25. I have had a copy of the 2005 (and like every other year) paper 2 in my binder since the beginning of the year. I thought the whole thing was kind of funny, but it is unfair to places that can't afford to buy the old released tests.</p>

35

<p>"The IB wishes to apologize for an error in the production of the May 2007 history HL/SL paper 2. The questions in this paper are those from the May 2005 session. This error arose because of wrongly identifying alternative examination papers created for the May 2005 session [...]</p>

<p>At the grade award meeting for history close attention will be paid to the results for all schools with the aim of identifying anomalies in the results for this assessment component. For example, comparisons will be made with candidates’ performance on other components and in comparison with the teachers’ predicted grades. Where differentials can be linked to prior experience of the paper, an adjustment to the marks awarded will be considered.</p>

<p>Again, we apologize for this serious oversight. As in each examination session, every effort will be made to ensure that the results for history are a true reflection of each candidate’s ability." - (10/05/2007)</p>

<p>Whatever they do they cant make it fair for everyone...</p>

36

<p>daaaanng. this could go really poorly in either direction, and I am seriously concerned that my grade will be negatively effected as a result of this mistake. I studied more for paper two than paper three, and could easily have done much better on paper 2 than 3, moreover, I studied almost exactly what was on the exam because those are areas frequently covered by the exam and NOT because I knew what the questions were going to be. I used readily available released materials to prepare, should I be hurt because of that? no</p>

<p>then again, people that didn't use old exams while preparing could be at a disadvantage for that reason, and a lot of the countries IBO serves are unable to afford to purchase the released exams. This is going to be a serious problem.</p>

<p>I hope the fact that I got a 7 on my IA will keep them from thinking I did well because they were old questions (that is, assuming I do well, I had 4x the work ethic when I did my IA last year/early this year as I did when I prepared for the exam, lol)</p>

37

<p>The IBO has encountered situations like this before. My school did not practice with or distribute the May 2005 exam, though we did practice with May 2006. IB exams are of course not scored by computers - based on how past mistakes have been handled, they are going to use their judgement and ask for schools to be honest. Last year with the issue of the periodic tables in Chemistry, some schools used them and some schools didn't. They asked for honesty and then individually scored the exams. I am unaware of anyone at my school who was helped or hurt.</p>

<p>It is exactly for reasons like these that the IBO asks for a predicted grade. Also, this year's paper 3 was hard - no questions on slavery which is a big unit in most HOA programs. Paper 2 was easy IMO compared to May 06 - most of the questions were general and didn't ask for comparisions but allowed you to use one example. Single party states - address successes and failures - that's a question you could really make up an answer with anything. I found paper 2 really easy and I hadn't seen it before. So I expect that the scoring for paper 2 was already harder when it was originally given and would have been harder anyway this year had it been an original exam. So I think pretty much most people would have thought they did better on paper 2 than paper 3, unless they happened to cover those topics really well, but some of them were relatively unusual IMO. </p>

<p>If they were really concerned about the effect of this they would probably re-administer the test, I'd think, which wouldn't even be all that difficult.</p>

38

<p>Re-administering the test would be too much work to organize at this point. From what I understand, this mistake impacted everyone in the world. A guy who studied South Asia and Oceania said that the situation was exactly the same as mine and I study history of Europe. You can look at it from all the different angles, but in the end I believe someone is going to be at disadvantage because of this. People in Europe are enraged apperently...something to do with their scores and universities there...I am not exactly sure what the process is there. (in UK)</p>

<p>Princedog, what happened with the CHem tables? I haven't heard about that one.</p>

39

<p>Last year something happened with the periodic tables for chemistry - I don't remember exactly what, I wasn't in chemistry, but I think they just weren't sent to some areas. So the IB coordinators were instructed not to distribute them to anyone and to tell students to complete the test as best they could and it would be graded with the knowledge that they could not complete some of it (as some of it required a periodic table). However, in some tests, the tables ended up being distributed. So they had to take that into account and adjust how they graded all the papers based on how the IBC reported how they administered the test. </p>

<p>I do not think many schools will lie if asked about whether/how they prepared with this released exam, if any do at all, as most schools are more scared to lose their IB program by not complying with the regs than they are of getting worse results, since obviously the results won't mean anything if you are audited and lose your diploma program. </p>

<p>Basically, you might be negatively affected, but you will never know. This is not the exam that was supposed to be administered. If you look at May 06, my teacher said it's the hardest one he ever saw, and I agree it was much harder than this May 05 one. So May 07 may have been much harder (probably was, paper 1 and paper 3 were pretty hard) and you might have done even worse than the negative effect you <em>might</em> get. There is really no way to know. There is some element of luck to the tests at any rate and this is going to be no different. You may be positively impacted. There's no way to know either way. I imagine for most people it will be neutral. </p>

<p>I think they could readminister the test after the other tests are finished. It would not be all that easy, but possible. I do not think they will do this as it did not happen with chem or with other exams that went awry. But I don't know what the compelling reason is they can't, sure it is inconvenient but a lot of things like IB exams are, ours go after school has ended everyday and sometimes start before which is inconvenient, but we have no choice. I suppose if someone really had to opt out of it because they weren't available at that time for something planned beforehand, they could get a note and it would be treated like a medical absence where they use the predicted score and the paper 1 and 3 marks to assume what score you would have made on paper 2. Or they can tell you to take it in Nov 07, which they do with some medical absences.</p>

40

<p>Oh and I also meant to say I find the whole thing kind of weird, I mean you think someone would have noticed, it wasn't like the test was from ten years ago, surely this must go through some checking process...? I don't know I just find it strange, I can imagine a lot of other mistakes happening (like periodic tables not being sent) but this is a little different, to screw up the whole exam.</p>

<p>But then again they do recycle questions so even if someone recognized some, maybe they just thought they were the only ones that were the same. I know that part of this year's physics paper 3 was the same as '05 or '06, can't remember which one, but we definitely went over it in class. The whole thing wasn't the same, but a few of the questions were pretty much verbatim.</p>