Knowledge Questions in International Baccalaureate Subjects
Recently we had our staff compile a list of some knowledge questions in different subjects. They came up with a pretty good list, which I thought a lot of ToK students and teachers would appreciate having.
Some of the questions fit neatly in a given subject area, while others fit in more than one subject.
History
Are historical claims restricted by the language they use?
Is all history biased?
How important is the role of statistics in history?
Does history show we have made ethical progress?
To what extent does emotion play a role in historical interpretation?
Is historical objectively possible?
To what extent does historical knowledge change over time?
How is knowledge about the past different from other kinds of knowledge?
How does the language used to describe the past change how history is understood?
Natural science
(Key words: scientific method, Popper's principle of falsification, scientific revolution and paradigm shift)
Is language necessary for the...
The IB Economics Paper 1 Essay Structure
In the new syllabus (May 2022 exams onward) and get to choose 1 out of 3 questions, chosen from any of the 4 units. Paper 1 is worth 20% of your final for HL students and 30% for SL students.
You'll get get 75 minutes (1 hour and 15 minutes). That seems like quite a lot of time and it is, but you're expected to do a lot in that time, so you'll need to be careful to do everything you need to do in the time you get.
It’s easy to waste time (i.e with lengthly introductions or descriptive writing) that earn you no marks at all.
If you use this structure you’ll be sure to earn all of the possible marks for each of your IB Economics Paper 1 essays.
Part A - 10 Marks (Roughly 30 Minutes)
Answer the question using real case studies and theory from the course.
Definitions and your real life example
In a quick introduction paragraph, do the following:
- Start with a sentence explaining part of what the question is about, using a keyword...
The Theory of the Firm Rappers (Economics)
Theory of the firm is hard! ...It's ToF to get your head around. ...Get it?
There's an easy way!
You can easily memorize everything. I'll show you here.
Background
The first year I taught IB Economics, my students really struggled with the diagrams and all of the memorization in this part of the course. And I didn't know how to help them remember it. But I love taking something hard and making it easy. So I love mnemonics and finding a structure (or a system) that you can always use to get great results. This approach is the only thing that works for me.
So, while this is obviously an Economics post, you can also take this as a lesson in how to use mnemonics to pack otherwise hard-to-remember information into your brain.
I read a lot of books on this subject to help my students (people like Cal Newport, Adam Robinson and Joshua Foer --who's book is subtitled "The Art and Science of Remembering Everything") and I've applied what I've learned...
How to Make Your Good Extended Essay Great
If you are a regular reader of this blog, you’ll know I’m all about finding systems and structures to make challenging things less challenging. Or, to put it more simply, I like to do things the easy way. To that end, I want to show you how to make a few tweaks to your average extended essay and earn top marks for it.
The following are some advanced techniques that many International Baccalaureate (IB) extended essay supervisors might forget to share. And many aren’t aware of them.
Before reading this blog post, I suggest reading my post on getting started with your extended essay. That article explains how to choose a good essay question, among other things. This article is about advanced techniques, the polish that can raise your grades (to a high B or an A). But if your foundation is off no amount of polishing is going to be enough. So again, make sure you get off to a good start.
1) Doubt Your Sources
By now your Extended Essay contains the best...
How to Structure a Theory of Knowledge (TOK) Presentation
The following Theory of Knowledge (TOK) presentation structure has been designed very carefully. (It’s taken several years of conversations!) It’s easy for you to follow and ticks all the boxes.
I'm going to tell you how many slides to have (nine), what text should go on each slide (less is more) and what you should talk about while each slide is up (focus on the interesting parts).
A clear structure like this is essential because it helps the audience follow what you’re saying. It also keeps you from wasting time, both during your presentation and in your preparation phase.
(This is also done for the TOK Essay, here).
There are a few things I need to go over before we get into the slides.
The Development Section
When you get into the Development section (where the knowledge question is explored and analyzed with reference to the AOKs and WOKs), you’ll see that we use a Claim, Counterclaim, Mini-Conclusion structure. We do this (claim, counterclaim,...
The CUEGIS Answer Method
Here is my step-by-step method for answering these questions, to make sure you get full marks on the exam. Remember, this one question can easily bring you up an ENTIRE GRADE level, if you do it right. It's worth 10% of the whole course.
First, know that you will have about 34 minutes for this question.
The CUEGIS method
The body will address each concept, but mostly just one concept at a time. The basic model you’ll follow will be repeatedly doing the normal answer method stuff (CTs, CLs and SWs), but in this case the course theory is your normal insights from the course (as always), but ALSO your insights into the concept. So keep making links to your company as well as your insights about the concepts (i.e. innovation, or strategy) while also linking your answer to normal insights from the course (i.e. Ansoff's matrix).
CL = Case Link. Give a fact about your chosen company and the first concept.
CT = Course Theory. Use a keyword, tool or...
Advanced Business Extended Essay Research
In this post, I wanted to share with you a resource straight out of latest online course: Business EE Mastery. I know a lot of you are working on your Extended Essays at the moment, so I thought you'd probably appreciate some extra help.
If you're interested, you can try-out my Business EE Mastery video course online for FREE at the moment. You might not need any more help, but if you do this works and I'm happy to help. Either way, here is some info that will help you with your research:
The ability to research effectively is all about two things:
- Efficiency and
- Thoughtfulness.
You need to know how to get the information you're looking for quickly and also, be willing to think about what you're looking for. Normally people look for the wrong information. Wrong information is information that has nothing to do with your research question. And EE students use information like this all the time. You can use some information that doesn't really relate to your RQ...
Recent Posts
"This course has been excellent and of so much help to me.” - Kanika V. (India)
"This saved my life. 10/10
-Harold L (Hong Kong)
"Thanks a ton! I have used this article to guide me for my last 2 IA's and when I was assigned my 3rd and final Econ IA, the first thing I did once I got my Econ article, was open this page. Much appreciation from Pearson College UWC!
-Keegen Payne (Victoria, British Columbia)
"I actually just wanted to let you know that you have been a very big help for me in TOK and Economics. With your effort to publish all this information and advice to IB students, you're really making a difference!"
-Anne-Sophie T. @ UWC Maastricht (The Netherlands)
"Me and my partner have got an A for our presentation, fully following this guide. Thank you so much Mr. Woods!"
-Alexa A @ Pechersk School International Kyiv (Ukraine)
"Thank you so much for this structure! We followed it exactly as you laid out in our TOK presentation and our teacher gave us 9/10!!"
-Mariana @ St Julien's School (Carcavelos, Portugal)
"THANK YOU SO MUCH! We recently began working on TOK presentations and I was completely lost but this guide is absolutely amazing and makes it so much clearer. :)" -Virginia @ Tashkent International School (Uzbekistan)
"I want to thank you for the resources that have been provided. As a result, I got an A for EE in business after following the steps written in this website, including the help from my supervisor of course. I would recommend the current IB students to read the resources in your web, in order to obtain more insights. Thank you once again, sir!"
-Cynthia @ Universitas Kristen Petra (Surabaya, Indonesia)
"I'm an IB student who has been lost until I found this website! This has the best advice on the web and I'm definitely recommending it to all my fellow IBers back at school. Definitely wish you were my economics teacher! Thank you so much for taking time to write these guides. You have truly saved my IB life!"
-Cat (UK)
"WOW! Thank you already for helping me. So many great posts about IB and how to be effective. So awesome. I will defiantly spend more time here and hopefully learn a lot. I just wanted to let you know how great and helpful your website is :)"
-Nea @ HF-kursus og IB World School (Denmark)
"Thank you so much Mr Woods. The Economics exam will start in 4 hours and I think I am ready for it!"
-Thao @ Auckland International College (New Zealand)
"Your website is amazing! I got two level 7's in my last IAs with the help of your site. Thank you, all the way from UWCSA"
-Nicolette Sauramba @ Waterford Kamhlaba United World College of Southern Africa (Swaziland)
"@adnamaweit Every self-motivated IB student knows @timwoods..."
-Amanda Tiew @ Campaka Schools (Malaysia)
"Just want to express my deepest gratitude and appreciation for this website and all the effort you've channelled into helping others with your knowledge and skills. I've found it extremely helpful and I cannot thank you enough!"
-Hachi @ Anglo-Chinese School (International) School (Singapore)
"Just wanted to send you a note of appreciation for the great and selfless contribution you have made. You must have already made a difference to so many lives and achieved the real purpose of our lives. "
-Hina Nihal @ Jeddah Knowledge International School (Saudi Arabia)
"Thank you so much Mr. Woods. I find it absolutely incredible that you take the time to answer students and write your posts. Just today I was talking with another friend of mine who, I just found out, also happens to be following your blog."
-Alyson @ EF Academy (New York)
"I just wanted to say that I got a 6 on my SL economics exam last year, and I strongly believe that was because of all the help I got from this website on commentaries. A big thank you from Dallas, TX."-Tashi
"Dear Mr. Woods, thank you so much for your structure for TOK essays. It's really helped me develop a clear idea of what to do when I was absolutely clueless before! Definitely recommending to all my peers."
-Justine @ Tunas Muda International School (Jakarta)
"This page is awesome. Thank you very much for your help in my IA. You saved my life. Argentina wishes the best for you. Gracias!"
-Carlos (Argentina)
"Thank you for this piece of gold! I was about to give up on my TOK presentation when I saw this page! Now I know I can deal with the IB and TOK in particular! Greetings from PERU!"
-Mateo (Peru)
"Thank you so much for all of this voluntary support. I'm taking an online economics HL course and it becomes quite difficult at times to find assistance. You're a life saver!."
-Theone (Bangkok, Thailand),
"Hello, I just wanted to say thank you for writing these guides. They have been extremely helpful for me, I was just about to panic and give up on my IA and now I am actually really proud of it."
-Sofie Lind
"Dear Mr. Woods, your initiative is highly appreciated and needless to say, the resources on this website are helping thousands of students tremendously. As for me, I thank you sincerely for your notes on IB Economics, the Extended Essay and for Theory of Knowledge. Hats off! Nothing better than spreading wisdom! Congratulations!"
-Anonymous
"Everyone at my school in Mexico uses your Structure for TOK essays. I've used it on all of mine and I've never gotten lower than an A-. I just wanted to thank you for being a lifesaver."
-Maria @ Greengates School (Mexico City)
"How to structure an Economics Internal Assessment is amazing. Absolutely great. It is such a great help to have word counts of different sections and a detailed description on how to score high marks. Thank you so much."
-"Desperate Student"
"Just wanted to say, as a fellow Economics & Business teacher of IB, I love your site. So plain, simple but so effective. My students in Barcelona love it too and it makes my job easier. Keep up the good work, and thank you once again. Really good and inspirational information on your site!"
-Faraz Mirza @ The American School of Barcelona
"Thank you! This is tremendously helpful. I am writing three IAs tonight. Unsure as to what I would do without these posts these posts as a guide. Thanks again."
-"Procrastinator"
"I am an IB student from India and I am very very thankful to you for these sites. My extended essay, TOK essay and business IA are the result of your articles and ideas. Your site gave my extended essay a plan on how to go about it and made the journey simpler. The article how to score full marks in the business IA was really helpful as it gave me a plan and coming into TOK I was able to build my ideas in structured pattern.
-Srikanth Reddy @ Sreenidhi International School (Hyderabad, India)
"I was looking about to get some support material for my son’s TOK and EE today and your pages have been great. They are easy to follow and digest. My son was very grateful. Your blog has been a fabulous resource! Keep up the great work!"
-Karen (Doha, Qatar)
"Just wanted to write you a quick thank you note for putting up such a great revision website! It is honestly one of the best I have encountered online for IB Economics revision. If I was at OFS it would be a pleasure to have you as my Econs teacher!"
-Avi @ United World College of South East Asia (UWCSEA), Singapore
"Your Economics IA slideshow really helped me understand what assessors were looking for, and how I could easily avoid loosing marks (word count etc). I really appreciate the time that you have spent to help students like me."
-Anonymous Student @ IBS of Provence (France)
“I teach ToK in Midvale, UT and LOVE your site. The students have really struggled with the essay writing process and your site structures it better than anything else I've ever received. Thanks”
-S. Allen (Utah, USA)
“i am an IB student here in India, and i was demotivated with regards to the workload this course has dished out to us every week. but i went through this website, and all of a sudden there's been a change of heart. thank you for posting such beautiful stuff that i can relate to.”
-Adi C.
“Your site is amazing!! Thank you so much! I am a senior in IB economics and thanks to you did very well in my IA! Just thought I had to let you know.”
-Pamela A.
"woooooooooooooow How to Write Successful College Application Essays has opened my eyes like so wide. thanx tim woods i sure will apply all these tips"
-Julie H.