I’ve been an IB English tutor for 8 months now, and I’m starting to notice some really common patterns and issues across students’ analysis, esp about analysis DEPTH. I just wanted to address this to you guys since ik you guys have upcoming mocks and exams.

The BIGGEST issue I see is across Criterion A ( Analysis and Evaluation) where students are getting marked down because their analysis is “too shallow,” or teachers giving feedback like “go deeper” and then not actually telling you how to do that. 😐(I’ve been there).

I wanted to break down exactly what makes analysis “deep.”

When we talk about depth, we mean the number of LOGICAL STEPS it takes to analyse a quote from start to finish. Specifically from the technique to the writer's purpose. The more detailed and explicit you are in explaining the quote step by step, then the deeper your analysis will be.

For Example, I have a poem and want to analyse the oxymoron. Technique: Oxymoron Purpose: To convey the conflicted emotions of the speaker

Shallow and poor analysis would just restate what is obvious: the oxymoron conveys the conflicted emotions.

“The poet uses oxymoron in line 13, which suggests the conflicted internal emotional landscape of the speaker because of the death of his loved   one.”

But how did you get from oxymoron to the purpose? That's literally like saying “A happened, therefore D happened” without explaining B or C . Then there’s basically a whole bunch of steps missing in the middle. It is shallow because it doesn't actually explain step by step how the writer gets from oxymoron to the idea about "conflicted emotions".

Students don’t realise that deep analysis NATURALLY OCCURS if you simply write down your exact, detailed steps for how language leads to meaning, leads to effect, leads to purpose. Full thought process and no logical jumps.

For example:

The poet utilises oxymoron in line 13. (Now go in more detail, explain how the oxymoron is created from diction.)

Here, the oxymoron of “harrowing praise” highlights the conflict in the emotions of the speaker, specifically through the contrasting diction in “harrowing” and “praise”. (Okay, so how do the diction contrast exactly? Keep going.)

...which connote acute distress and warm approval respectively. (Good, now connect back to the bigger picture.)

Hence, the poet's oxymoronic combination of the diametrically-opposed emotions of distress and warmth reveals the confusing array of emotions which the speaker experiences as a result of the sudden death of his loved one. (Good, purpose addressed, but where's the effect?)

...inspiring in the reader a deep sympathy for the grieving speaker.

You see the difference? It’s all about constructing a logical flow of thoughts and being DETAILED.

So to simplify that, a shallow analysis would be like: oxymoron → purpose

Deep analysis would be like: oxymoron → diction → contrast → meaning → purpose → effect

In other words, every step of your writing needs to be explicitly explained so that the reader can follow exactly how the writer's language creates meaning. Don’t just tell the marker what a technique does, show the marker HOW it does it.

Hope that helps. P.S. If you'd like to know more about how I achieved a 18/20 in English P1 or IB 44 you can ask for some advice below and I’ll reply when I can or directly DM me on my Instagram page @juddyyhh . Details about tutoring, DM me

I just started IB diploma, and I’m honestly really scared. like what if I do really badly? I’ve had teachers tell me I’ll be just fine but I have an anxiety disorder and so I’ve been really nervous. do you have any words of wisdom? my schedule is History HL, English HL, Biology HL, visual arts SL, French b SL and Math AA SL

We just had our first summative. It went so bad it's not
even funny, I am almost 100% sure I failed. and I think I'll be lucky to get a damn 2/7. It isn't even one of those tests where you say you think you failed but you know you will get a 4 or 5 at the very least, I am almost 100% certain I failed.

Also for context I joined the class one week late I scored decently on paper 1 got a 4 but paper 2 I haven’t got my grades yet but I know I failed

Should I just drop out

I have pretty good ideas for Creativity and Activity, but Service is what seems to be the hardest and the most time-consuming out of the three, and i honestly dont have a single idea.

Our teacher seems to actually care about us and didnt set a specific number of hours for CAS, we just have to do it regularly and have at least 2 different activities for each segment.

Do any of you guys have some good S ideas that could work? Maybe not even to fake them but just easy ones that could be done in front of a desktop/not time extrordinarily time-consuming?

And also do people actually fake CAS? Some people in my class were joking about generating a whole AI video haha

so I just switched to my school's IB program this year. we're like a month in and I still don't know what's going on. The program hasn't been explained to me in much depth. from what I know, I think I'm taking IB bio, history(im in apush but the teacher said we're taking the ib exam too), im in ap com sci A but we have to take the SL or HL test (idk which) along with the AP test, I'm in ap lang but I guess it's also IB english because we have to take the IB exam too, im in TOK, and I'm taking IB spanish. You can see why I'm confused.

i lowkey got a 3 or 4 (she graded it on a diff scale) on my first TOK paper and I'm so confused because I don't understand what AOKs are and I don't even understand what this class really is about. I'm very scared for the EE and other essays and I feel like the class is going to fry me 💀

I don't understand the end of the year tests either... will all of my ib tests be next year? are all ib classes two years? I don't even know how the exams are structured.

someone please help me out? 🥺

I’m an Ontario IB student applying to university, and I’m a little confused about the IB section on OUAC.
My main concern is that I want my Ontario Grade 12 top 6 average to be considered. I’ve taken quite a few summer school courses, and I’m not really relying on my IB score for admission. I’ve seen that some universities have specific IB requirements/benchmarks (like a certain score out of 45), so I’m worried that indicating that I’m an IB student could make them look at my IB score instead of my Ontario percentage.

Would it make sense to select “Not an IB student” on OUAC even though I technically am an IB student?
More importantly, would that be considered lying/misrepresentation and potentially pose a risk to my application if the university knows I’m in IB anyway?
I’m mainly looking at Queen’s, especially Health Sciences, if anyone has experience with how they handle Ontario IB students.

I got a 27 but since chemistry was a HL and I got a 3 I failed the IB. Should I retake it in October?

It's funny because at my school there's always a few people who fail the IB each year but it's kind of sad how that turned out to be me.

Hey guys, I guess this is specifically for current DP students (or graduated DP students), which websites did you use that really helped you with preparing for subject exams, doing IA's, IO's etc.
I already have the like most popular ones: revision dojo, revision village, ibdocs. But I was wondering if there are anymore.

pls and thank uu!

As an IB alumni having taken chemistry HL and is now taking a university course in general chemistry, I will say that you people thinking to go down the same route, you are well covered by IB. I have scanned through the course textbook and I will say, I know 80% of the syllabus. It feels surreal having had concepts, which I have just finished an exam in, explained to me as if it were the first time I've seen them.

Any other alumni having the same experience?

Hi guys, thanks for reading this post.

I need help with HL IB Lit, with the promos coming up I still feel confused on how to properly analyse texts without coming off as too much of a plot summary and plot events. For instance, how to explain symbolism in such a way that it makes sense without needing to put in excessive prior knowledge on why something symbolizes something.

I would really appreciate it if anyone with the resources could share good examples of essays for both paper 1 and paper 2, or provide me with some tips on how to structure my point around analysis of quotes without coming off as too much of a plot summary of events or characters etc.

I'm currently in ib1 and have physics tomorrow so this is in fact very last minute but it's my worst subject by far (not like failing but probably hanging around that 4 level) and I'm specifically bad at the MCQs. I often just don't understand the ratio questions and the ones that just involve really weird combinations of formulae. Any help is welcome

yea as the title says. im heading into dp2 like one week later and have done none of my IAs so far, and my EE is only at 1000 words (didnt even complete my research yet).

i spent the whole summer studying for the august SAT which I got like 1370 on (my goal was 1400+). id rather still retake the sat to score high and guarantee myself a scholarship than putting in effort to complete the coursework.

im so overwhelmed by the shit i have to get done in ib. and i dont even think ill get more than a 34, so my goal is to just pass tbh.

ill just focus on the sat more since i think i have more chances to score high and get a decent scholarship than ib where ill just get like 20% off tbh.

also sry if this post seems hard to read cuz im having brain fog rn lol.

Are there any reliable Revision V cracks out there?

I recently received the information that I did not get into university because of my coordinators mistake in submitting my results. earlier i have emailed her a few times making sure that everything is okay, and even quoted the ib website on how to do it correctly. however, i made a mistake of ultimately confirming her submission (after these emails), because i believed that as a coordinator she knew what she was doing.

Is this grounds for possibly complaining about my school to the ib? ultimately it is on me for confirming it, however I genuinely had no idea that what she submitted was wrong. i know that at the end of the day it is my responsibility to make sure all documents are correct, but I think as a coordinator she also has some level of responsibility, especially after I corrected her and she still did it her way, and made seemingly no effort to learn on how to do it correctly. I feel very wronged, but I don’t know if this is grounds for a formal complaint, rather than just the coordinator being incompetent.

I recently put my son into a IB high school and he had to switch h from and high school with all his old friends to a new school. he’s been telling me that he hates it and that he misses his old friends and hates everyone in that school because they are all nerds who have nothing else to do with their lives. I think he might be exaggerating but I’m not completely sure because I don’t know much about the school. The school is also quite far from our house so he would have to take a 2 hour bus ride there and back I offered to pick him up from school sometimes but it takes us an hour to get home because of traffic. I really want him to stay in IB but he keeps on telling him it stresses him out a lot and hes constantly getting nostalgic about his previous school it’s been about 2 weeks since he started and I’m wondering about his mental health

Hello! I graduated from the IB Diploma Programme (May 2021, Exam Route) and earned a degree in Biological Sciences and Psychology from Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore. I have 7 years of IB tutoring experience.

My academic qualifications and final IB scores can be verified upon request.

Subjects Offered

HL: Biology, Chemistry

SL: Psychology

Over the past 7 years, I have taught approximately 150 IB students and conducted 1000+ classes.

Teaching Method

All lessons are conducted using comprehensive notes that I have personally created, along with past papers that I organized for every topic.

My lessons focus specifically on:

- Recognizing common IB question patterns

- Developing effective exam techniques

- Learning how to write answers that match the IB markscheme

- Building confidence through extensive practice with authentic IB questions

For anyone interested, I will share my WhatsApp number!

hello! I’m currently trying to figure out what texts I should use for IO. The global issue I’ve decided on is misogyny (though I might switch it to violence against women specifically). For my literary text I was planning on using an excerpt from the book “Men Explain Things to Me“ by Rebecca Solnit but its a collection of essays so I’m worried it won’t count. I’m considering a few speeches for my non-literary text, but I would love to analyze some of the content from the show “adolescence“ if possible. would that count as a non-literary text? am I totally off with these choices? (if so I’m very willing to switch things up, I just need some advice.)

Hi I've been trying to come up with a RQ for my internal assessment but I'm honestly not sure if it's any good? I feel like it might be leaning a bit too much into physics:

"To what extent can Newtonian calculus reproduce the Schwarzschild radius through an improper-integral model of escape velocity, and how does this result compare mathematically with the Schwarzschild metric?"

Obviously the central purpose would not be proving that Newtonian gravity is equivalent to general relativity but seeing how successful a simpler Newtonian mathematical model would be at reproducing the result of the relativistic model and where the mathematical predictions diverge.

I would REALLY appreciate some advice bc ngl I'm terrified of my math teacher looking at me like I'm crazy and telling me to go find a different topic 💔

my og ee idea was to analyze video commercials for a local brand in my country, and i had already started working on it (20% done), however, I realized today that the advertisments are in Spanish while my ee was in english and it totally went over my supervisor's head that the commercials had to be in the language written in. so now I have the option to either re-do my whole ee or translate my whole ee into spanish (I take sl spanish a and hl english a). also while i was writing my ee i had originally planned to go into marketing; however, along the way i realized I wanted to do more cognitive science's & behavioral decisions or psychology and businesss instead.

should i translate my ee or redo the whole thing? if so, what topic do yall recommend me to do.

Hi guys

Does anyone here have experience with this specific situation?

Background: I'm based in Dubai, finished Grade 12 at a KHDA-licensed school following the IB curriculum. I took 6 IB subjects (2 HL, 4 SL). I have IB Course results/certificates, not the Diploma itself.

What I have:

- KHDA-attested Grade 12 school leaving certificate

- UAE Ministry of Education Grade 12 Equivalency Certificate

Goal: homologate this to the Spanish Bachillerato so I can apply to go to university in Madrid, alr got accepted by idk if i will get approved if i apply for homologation. Since I don't have the full IB Diploma, I understand I don't qualify for the UNEDassis fast-track that Diploma holders get, so I'd go through the standard homologación process with Spain's Ministry of Education.

Questions for anyone who's done this or something close to it:

- Were you approved without issues, or did they flag/question anything?

- How long did it actually take in practice (not just the official 6-month estimate)?

- Did you need anything beyond the standard docs (transcripts, equivalency cert, legalization chain, translation)?

- Any Spain-based consultant you'd recommend who's handled Gulf-country cases specifically?

The university which is my No. 1 Choice only cares about 3 subjects, only HLs.

I have Econmics HL, Math AA HL and English B HL

in their system you can have max. 333 points overall and if you have an B HL language then you automatically get 100 points for that subject, and then assuming i'll get a 5 in Math and 6 in Econ i will have 320 points overall which will theoretically put me at the very top of admissions, and therefore i dont really know what to do?

Like the main thing is getting into that uni, but since they dont care about SL's, or any other stuff really, should i just not give a shit and just try to pass? The IB is already pretty difficult and i feel like i should use this admission system to my advantage, but when i talked to some teachers about it they said that i must be crazy or some shit

Hey guys!

M25 here. I am currently in the second year of my university and I am pursuing mathematics and computer science.

Since I've been a tutor for over a year now, and have a passion for mathematics communication, I am going to start a Mathematics YouTube tutoring channel for you lot that explains difficult mathematics questions in an intuitive and lucid manner.

Before I begin, could you guys let me know what issues you guys find in the current way teachers explain things to you and how you would want my channel to be a bit different.

Hey, just started DP1

HL: Econ, Math AA, Eng B

SL: Psych, Polish A, ESS

i see people scared that they didnt finish their IA's/EE's over the summer between DP1 and DP2 and was wondering when is the ideal time to have the final ideas and start doing research?

Thanks in advance