Honestly, I see it all the time.
Just lies. I see it on the IBO sub-Reddit,
I see it on the discord server,
I see on that massive Facebook group,
I see it from emails
that students send to me,
just insane things that
they've been told about
their internal assessment and IB physics
that are just not true.
So what I want to do today
is talk about these five insane lies
that are told and spread
throughout the IB community,
and just give you the truth
behind it and just help you make
this whole process a lot more simple.
So let's start with the
first lie. Lie Number one,
your physics IA research
question has to be unique
to get a seven.
What? Unique?
I mean, we do realize that the
IB is a high school program
and the internal assessment
is a high school project.
You're not just out to
discover new physics.
You're not working for a PhD dissertation.
You're not working amongst the
greatest minds in the planet.
You've basically got to conduct
an experiment, write it up.
To show you understand the
scientific method and physics.
It's as simple as that.
You do not need a unique idea
to get a seven, in IB physics.
You're not supposed to make up
some new physics that nobody
has ever done or use a research question
that no one has ever done.
Let's have a think about this, right?
There are 25,000 students
every year who sit their IB
physics exams.
That means there's 25,000
students every year who complete
an internal assessment.
Now some poor person has
to mark all these things,
but it's not the same person.
So there's hundreds of examiners
marking these and not one
of these examiners are expecting you
to solve the problem of nuclear fusion.
I guarantee it, it's just not
possible for 25,000 of you
every year to come up with a unique topic.
So please don't try. Don't
stress yourself out about it.
And if you don't believe me,
would you believe the examiners?
And the most recent examiners report,
they said the most
successful investigations had
well-defined research questions,
clearly identified variables
and a suitable means to measure
and relate the variables plus
an appropriate unknown,
scientific background.
They're telling you they
don't want anything too fancy.
So please believe me.
Now, if you're still struggling
and you need something,
an idea that interests you,
then I do have a book that's
got over a hundred ideas
and it's free. And I'll
let you know about that.
At the end of this,
all you need from your topic
is something that you can
investigate easily in a
lab or in a simulation,
something that you get involved
in that you're interested in
and something that you
can ultimately produce
a write-up on with a graph.
Now, this idea of involvement
and interest, leads me on to
the next lie. Lie. Number two,
you need to show real life
application relating to your
topic to get full
personal engagement marks.
Ugh. There's no nothing worse
than reading the following sorts of words
in an introduction to
an internal assessment.
I'm passionate about bungee jumping
and the last time I stood on
top of a bridge about to leap,
I thought, oh, I'm fascinated by SHM.
And wouldn't it be wonderful
if I could combine my
fascination with SHM and bungee jumping
bearing this in mind, I
decided to investigate.
There is nothing worse than
reading this as an examiner.
It doesn't show personal
engagement at all.
It just sounds artificial.
It doesn't sound real.
And it sounds like you're
trying to write something to get
those two personal engagement
marks. Now don't get me wrong.
Those two personal engagement
marks are very important and
you do need to aim for them
because personal engagement
is worth two out of 24 marks.
So it's definitely something
you want to aim for.
Just promise me you won't do
it by trying to relate it to a
real life situation or show
that you're passionate about it.
In fact, promise me hand on heart.
Please, repeat after me. I promise.
I promise, I will not.
I will not, use the words, use the words,
passionate, fascinated.
Any of those words. It
just puts people off.
Now, if you don't believe me,
will you believe the examiners?
Here's what the last exam report said.
Students would often overemphasize
personal significance by
writing what seemed to
be artificial comments
about their general interests.
Moreover, their background interest
would not link to a
specific research question.
For example, the love
of playing ball sports
is not inherently related
to an investigation
and to the coefficient of
restitution of a bouncing ball.
My advice to you is not to
overemphasize your personal
significance in the investigation,
by making up some sort of comment
with a real life situation.
My advice to you is to show
your personal engagement
in the write-up by using
an interesting method
or taking a standard experiment
and developing the methods somewhat,
perhaps conduct a preliminary experiment
or show some genuine interest
in the analysis of your results.
Personal engagement.
Those two marks out of 24
are assessed holistically.
That means that the examiner
would look at the whole report
and determine whether they
feel you've been personally
involved and personally
engaged in that experiment.
And that's where you get your
personal engagement marks.
Again, if you don't believe me,
let me give you some of the
examiner's words on this.
When a student's report demonstrates
independent thinking,
initiative or creativity,
or when there is interest and curiosity
relating to the research question,
or when there is personal
input into the design or
implementation or presentation
of the investigation
then and only then has a student addressed
the criteria of personal engagement.
Full marks for personal
engagement require addressing a
number of the indicators and
is assessed holistically,
not in a section or paragraph with,
with the heading personal engagement.
Let's move on to the next
lie. Lie number three,
you're studying higher level IB physics.
So you need a higher level idea.
That's more complicated
than a standard level idea.
There's no difference between higher level
and standard level internal assessments.
The examiners don't know
if you're higher level
or standard level the
criteria is exactly the same.
There's no difference.
You can't have a higher level idea
and a standard level idea.
It's the exact same investigation.
So if you've been told you need to develop
a higher level internal assessment idea,
that's not down to the advice of the IB.
That's probably down to your
teacher trying to challenge you
or trying to develop your skills,
your investigative skills.
It's nothing to do with the IB.
So if you're really
struggling and you're obsessed
with this idea of finding
a higher level idea,
then please stop because you
don't need a higher level idea,
because what usually happens
is it becomes too complicated.
You might be looking at
something that's too far outside.
The IB syllabus.
You might sort of accidentally stretch
into university level physics,
or you might end up studying
two independent variables
rather than the one.
And the whole investigation
becomes far too complicated,
too much work.
And actually your chances
of getting good marks
decreases and decreases.
So can I give you a really
good piece of advice?
Stick to something simple? Okay.
One independent variable
and one dependent variable,
even if you're higher
level or standard level,
stick to something simple.
Now, not too simple.
I don't want something that
you can just find the method
of out of a textbook. You
definitely want to avoid that.
So for example, investigations,
like how does the length of a pendulum
affect the time period of pendulum?
Well, that would be so simple
that you wouldn't get marks for that.
There's no creativity involved there
finding acceleration due to
gravity, using a bouncy ball.
Again. No good right?
Stick to something simple.
Don't try and look for
a higher level idea.
It really is not worth it.
The topics I tend to see
students going towards
because they think it's more complicated
or a higher level idea are things
like double pendulum or fluids.
And all the physics behind
that is really advanced.
You're looking at, you know,
multiple level differential equations.
You're looking at really difficult stuff
that you'd find in university level.
So really think, okay, can I
see a clear method for this?
Do I understand the basics
of the physics behind this?
Before you jump into an
experiment where you try to prove
you're higher level.
Lie number four,
you need a title page and
it's got to be below 12 pages.
This is a really simple lie that I can blow apart right now.
A. You do not need a title page, please don't put a title page down.
The title of your internal assessment should simply be the research question at the top of the front page, easy.
B. It's always said it needs to be below 12 pages. That's not strictly true.
The IB have issued guidance, saying to produce an internal investigation of the quality we're looking for that can be done within 12 pages. But if it's 13 pages or 14 pages, that's okay. As long as you're not repeating things, as long as you're not blabbering on or being vague.
If you're being very precise, if you're being straight to the point, and you've got a lot to discuss, then the examiner won't mind, 13 or 14 pages. Make sure that everything you've written in those 12 to 13 pages is valid and precise.
Lie number five, is you can't do the same investigation as somebody in your class.
Now, this is a difficult one.
As a teacher, I would probably say the same.
So if I have a class of 10 students and two people want to investigate the same research question, then I would have to think twice about allowing that simply because of academic honesty. Not that I'm seeing that you would copy from each other. I don't think that would be the case. What I'm trying to see is that the internal investigation relies on you being independent and thinking of your own methodology. And it would be difficult for you to be standing on one side of the class, investigating something and the other student be standing on the other side of the class, investigating the same thing. And for you not to discuss the methodology and the pitfalls and all sorts of things like that.
So this lie, it is a lie because the IB offer no guidance on this. They don't say, you can't do the same investigation as somebody in your class. All they say is, that there should be no copying, but that's obvious, right? They do say that actually two people could work together on the same data, so the same experiment, but I think that's kind of, not frowned upon, but I don't think it's the done thing.
So it is a lie, according to the IB.
All the documentation I've read that, you can't do the same investigation as somebody else in your class, but from a teacher's point of view, I would like to encourage students to do different things. Just so I know, as a teacher, that you really have gone into that investigation in an independent manner.
So I end on a slight white lie, not a real lie.
Okay. What do you think about these five lies? Have you been told any of them, has this helped you at all?
I am a bit of an expert on internal assessments. I have seen hundreds, maybe thousands of them, and I've helped hundreds. Maybe thousands of students do it.
I've also written a book on it and that book is free for you. So if you'd like to download my book - you can do that here.
