On this, the third of three posts to make sure you score full marks on your Economics Internal Assessments, I want to give you a detailed checklist you can use to check your own work. (Here is post one, Getting Started with your Econ IA and post two: the Econ IA Structure).

I have included what the IB says they expect for full marks, and translated that into actionable steps. If you do everything on the checklist your teacher will have to give you full marks.

This is up-to-date with the "new" IB Econ curriculum (first Assessment 2022). 

A: Diagrams (3 marks)

IB Explanation: This criterion assesses the extent to which the student is able to construct and explain diagrams.

IB Expectations: Relevant, accurate and correctly labelled diagram(s) are included, with a full explanation.

Checklist (to get full marks):

Drawing the diagram:

-You have fully labelled your x and y-axis (See the Structure for this here).

-You’ve chosen the most appropriate diagram (the one that best...

I have found that the biggest challenge my students are having, in terms of scoring the top marks in the Business IA, is related to their use of analytical tools.

(For a step-by-step explanation of everything you need to include in your Business IA, use this page.)

You have a Research Question and you’re trying to arrive at your answer. A very common mistake is that students do a lot of analysis, but they don’t connect it properly to the Research Question (RQ) or to their Answer (Ans).

I have wracked my brain to make this more straightforward and I’ve come up with the following diagram, which you can follow to make your IA analysis a more straightforward process. If you follow it, it should raise your performance in several aspects of the IA Business rubric.

By this point, you have chosen an appropriate RQ. if you aren’t sure about that, I recommend reading this article first (and follow the '4 tests' it advises to check your RQ).  So now you know that...

IB Economics General Websites

• Welker’s Wikinomics - A website created by an IB economics teacher containing useful IB lecture notes as well as a blog
• Tutor2U - A resource for AS, A2 and IB economics revision
• Biz/ed - A general resource for learning economics, listed by topic.
• Essentials of Economics - Summaries, online quizzes and case studies relating to the textbook “Essentials of Economics”
• Economic Policy Debate - Is a place for online debates regarding current controversial ideas in economics. For IB Econ students, it’s a good place to review key concepts and evaluate.
• Vizala.com - Has a lot of great economics data. It's a database for country, demographic, social, and economic information.  

Videos

• Khan academy has produced some great videos on Microeconomics, Macroeconomics, and current issues in Econ Recommended
• Some really good video lessons from EconClassroom.com
• Paj Holden's YouTube page is also full of great IB...

Your college application admission letter or essay is one of the most important documents you will ever write. I want to show you how to write yourself to the head of the pack.

To do that I need to first explain to you the concept of Stump Speeches, which are often used by politicians. Regardless of the question a politician is asked they will try to answer it in a way that lets them talk about a few areas where they are strong. One guy will always come back to talk about cutting taxes. Another will always come back to talking about economic growth because they know, from their research, that when they talk about these specific things, people like them more.

I’m going to tell you what to say in your college admission letter (or college admission essay) so that the readers at Stanford or Yale will want to choose you over everyone else. The people who are going to be reading your letter want to see that you tick certain boxes. So you need to think about these people as your...

Starting your Extended Essay is a big challenge.

The best advice I can give you is start early and choose your research question carefully. Starting early is a time-management aspect you'll have to figure out on your own. But I can help you a lot on the second part. 

Coming up with an appropriate question is about 25% of the whole battle. Your supervisor can help you with this, but often they'll leave it to you.

And you’ll want to be very careful here. With the right question almost anything is possible. With the wrong question, you're setting yourself up to fail. Most students brainstorm possible ideas, ask for suggestions and read successful EE samples (which are often available in your high school library). But I want to help you to do better than the average student. The following 4 tests will help you make sure your RQ is top notch.

The Four Tests

A good research question (RQ) passes the following 4 tests:

#1 Is it the right scope?

Of course the question...

The IA is a brilliant opportunity to put some marks in the bank and make that 6 or 7 in the course much easier to achieve. This first article will focus on choosing an appropriate article.

Why does this matter?

If you choose a bad article you’ll find it like competing in the Olympic 100 meter dash wearing your granny’s high heels. It doesn’t matter how good you are. Your name might be Usain Bolt. You’re working with the wrong equipment, so you’re gonna get beat. Here, just like in your Extended Essay and so much else in life, you’ve got to make good decisions at the start of the thing to end up where you want to go. Actually, you need to decide on the concept you want to explore BEFORE you go looking for your article. You should normally focus on one of the really major concepts like supply and demand, market failure, or aggregate supply and taxes. And once you've done that you'll know what type of article you're looking for.

How to find...

Evaluation is a very important concept in IB Economics. But before we evaluate we always analyze.

Analysis is providing the DEED aspects --your Definitions, Explanations, Examples and Diagrams to show how the theory helps to answer the question. 

Okay, what's evaluation?

Basically, analysis is explaining the relevant theory. Evaluation is critiquing the theory.

Economic theories (i.e. our diagrams) always suggest certain things are true --for example that price ceilings will result in shortages. However, our field is full of interesting nuances. For example, price ceilings don't always result in shortages, because they might be set above the current equilibrium price.

There are always uncertainties and priorities to consider about the effects of a given policy. Remember that in your IA, for example, you're almost always looking at the possible effects of a certain policy decision. The simple presentation of the theory you did in the analysis section,...

This post will go through what you should write in your Economics IA, with step-by-step instructions and with word counts for each section.

What you need to know before you write:

• Avoid writing anything that isn’t going to earn you marks. You're going to need all the words you can get for your analysis and evaluation. Avoid quotes from the article and introductions longer than 2 sentences.
• Stick with one unit of the course (i.e. Micro, Macro, and then Global). Don’t start off in micro (apple prices rise, supply and demand, elasticity) and then evaluate the potential macro effects (this could hurt economic growth). Even if this is true, the IA is about going deep into one part of the course, rather than showing the linkages between different parts.
• Less is (often) more. Because of the very constraining word count (800 words) you’ll want to focus on really developing just one or two (two at the most) diagrams in your IA. And only evaluate one potential solution...

A while ago I wrote an article called The Straight A Students Time Management Secret. The answer seemed simple: get your work done during your school day. High achievers do report having this habit. When they’re working, they just work. They don’t spend much time inefficiently --half-doing work and half-socialising at the same time. The benefits are pretty obvious. More completely-free time in the evenings, they can get more sleep and they can socialise guilt-free and stress-free. But, actually implementing this advice can seem hard. At work/school, all of our friends are there. It’s distracting. And then suddenly the entire day has passed and we’ve made no progress. Here are a few techniques that work:

1. Block out some set-times every week just for working by yourself. Maybe Thursdays at lunch you go to your secret, private spot in the library and work on Math questions. Stick to your own schedule.
2. Get massive headphones and wear them when you’re...

First of all I'd like to thank those of you who have already given me some names of great IB teachers. If you'd like to add a nomination, please do that here.

#IBGreat?

I'm on the lookout for some of the really great IB teachers in the world. I want to connect with them, talk with them and help them spread their best insights.

For example:

Maybe you have a really good IB Biology teacher at your school. Students just love this woman. I could talk with her and then write about one of her exam tips or an insight about how she approaches the course.

I want to learn from great people, so I can make hard things easier for other great people. That's my mission.

Positive Recognition

I'm hoping a bi-product of this is that I can bring a lot of recognition to a lot of teachers who work really hard, but maybe haven't gotten a lot of positive attention before. Teaching can be a solitary job sometimes, so it couldn't hurt to make your favourite teacher internet-famous.

...