Unpacking What IB Subjects You Should Take
Picking your subjects is probably one of the hardest choices you can make during the IB, considering that you're going to be stuck with the choice for the next 2 years. I also had to make this decision, and realised that choosing the subjects might've been easier if someone had actually told me what to expect from each subject before entering them. Here, I have compiled a list of the subjects I took during my time in the IB and analysed each one in terms of their workload, assignment difficulty, and what to expect from teachers/lectures.
- Math Standard Level (SL) /Higher Level (HL)
- Environmental Systems and Societies (ESS)
- Psychology
- History
- English Lang&Lit
Math SL/HL
Math is a compulsory subject for all IB students around the world, and begs the question as to what level is the right one for you: SL or HL? This question has evolved for more recent IB students to taking Analysis & Approaches or Applications & Interpretation, and then the apparent divisions between SL and HL. It's all very confusing, especially for new IB students. During my own time in the IB, I only had to choose between SL and HL, so I can imagine the subject choices have become all the more confusing for new students. However, I will still try to clarify the distinctions between Math SL and HL so you can get an idea of what to expect from them.
Subject
Math SL covers 120 hours worth of material, whereas Math HL covers 150 hours. Keep in mind this is only class time expectations, and from my personal experience in both classes, Math HL requires many more hours to completely understand the material being covered within class. The syllabus for Math SL is quite a bit smaller than Math HL and requires gliding through most topics quickly and no in-depth understanding of any of the topics truly.
This is both a positive and negative in terms of both subjects: Math HL, by going into extreme detail about the topics covered, results in many more hours of study, but simultaneously much more thorough understanding and therefore better performance in exams. In Math SL, due to this "gliding" through topics, students are more likely to miss key information, never return to it, and end up being confused with whole topics since they aren't individually dwelled on for very long. If you think you can handle the extra workload, Math HL is as a result worth it. Math SL is more directed towards those that are focused on their other subjects, and those that believe they can quickly catch onto topics without having to spend a long time understanding them.As an additional note, I'd like to include the fact that Math HL teachers in my school usually would specifically choose which level of Math they'd like to focus on. Based on this knowledge, I came to understand that the "best" teachers would choose to teach Math HL because they would really need to know how to explain concepts incredibly well. A lot of what is taught in Math HL requires you having a good teacher, and as such teachers generally don't choose to take on such a big responsibility unless they are very passionate about teaching math well. On top of this, if their smaller group of students fail in Math HL, it's largely pinned onto the teacher as their responsibility to stop them from failing, adding to this sense of responsibility that only few teachers are really willing to take on as a result.
Meanwhile, Math SL is usually the larger group of students who are able to grasp onto the basics of most math concepts, and thus less chance of truly failing as a group. I would say that Math SL teachers, at least in my school, do not have as much pressure as Math HL teachers to keep their students afloat considering the more shallow approach to Math. Therefore, I would say in a very general sense Math HL potentially has the better teachers than Math SL (however, you really do need to take this with a grain of salt as this does, of course, vary for each school).
Internal Assessment (IA)
I found the IA to be the most stressful part of doing Math SL, actually. The concept had already made me panic in early IB1 and continued to torment me pretty much throughout IB2 as well. Math HL and Math SL have slightly different expectations, but nothing groundbreaking. What might score 16/20 in Math SL might score 15/20 in Math HL. Therefore, the grades from the IA are really not too different and are slightly influenced only by the level at which the "theory" behind the topic is analysed. Here is the Math IA rubric for both SL and HL.
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You can get:
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ESS
Subject
Environmental Systems and Societies (ESS) is a bit of a bullied subject and is usually seen as the last resort for those that really don't fit into any of the sciences, especially if they're not "bright". However, I've found that ESS is very different from what I learnt it was stereotyped as. The reason I took ESS was because I wanted to focus on Humanities mostly as I knew already in Pre-IB that I wasn't going to go into sciences in the future. I knew the basics of ESS: the subject was mostly focused on the relationship between sciences and humanities, rather than focusing on one or the other. This meant we would learn a more "holistic" view of why certain things happen in the world.
The major things that ESS covers are:
- environmental policies
- key historical events, usually environmentally devastating ones
- ecology (food webs, relationships between animals, stages populations and regions go through from being wiped out to its optimal state)
- specific names of gases and their impact on the atmosphere, water, and organisms
While I thoroughly enjoyed ESS for the material we covered, ESS as a subject really requires full understanding of applications of lots of specific concepts, which in turn equals lots of memorisation. I took History and Psychology at Higher Level, so this was something I already enjoyed and could do quite well in.
Furthermore, this "application of knowledge" learnt in ESS is something that takes a lot of practice to do correctly. For example, when HL Biology students were put to do a test with ESS concepts in our school, some failed or just passed and said they hated the contents due to having to apply knowledge. In this way, ESS differs from the sciences, which are very much based in what you memorise with limited need to actually twist and turn the knowledge itself.
All this in consideration, I'd take what people say about ESS with a grain of salt: by no means am I trying to "fight" the stereotype, but I genuinely found that at times ESS proved to be one of the most difficult subjects I had due to the sheer amount of dates/policies/people/events I needed to remember, and further the applications of these in current life.
IA
As an ESS student, the difficulty of your ESS IA is nearly entirely determined by the essential question: Questionnaire or Experiment?
I probably spent the most time on my ESS IA in comparison to my friends, and that's not necessarily a good thing. I was pretty much forced into a position where I had to do a questionnaire (as opposed to an experiment) due to me having only Humanities based knowledge and, because of this, no knowledge of how to even stage an experiment if I wanted to. The rest of my friends were science kids, so they all chose the experimentation option.
One major flaw within ESS already becomes apparent when doing the IA with a questionnaire: ESS IAs are largely dependent on identification and manipulation of Independent and Dependent Variables (IVs and DVs), of which simply don't exist in questionnaires since you're not manipulating anything, just asking participants questions.
On top of that, experiments have relatively less to talk about in terms of limitations and weaknesses, which you are required to discuss in the IA. The reason they have less to talk about it because these limitations and weaknesses are due to small errors on your part or general issues that were faced when conducting the experiment.
In comparison, questionnaires have ALL sorts of implications that are not only a result of your own errors, but those of the participants in the questionnaire, dozens of biases that can influence how they respond to questions, your own poor judgement in understanding how to effectively curb the influence of these biases, problems relating to the age/demographic/geographic region of the participants, etc. So, an IA just over 2000 words is simply a tiny, tiny, word count to fit that all in. Therefore, if you have a satisfactory amount of knowledge as to how to conduct an experiment, I'd probably recommend you do that over an experiment. Don't panic if you're a humanities student though, questionnaires aren't impossible but you just have to be prepared for a potentially larger workload.
This may sound weird from a HL History & Psych student, but I found that ESS may very well have been the most writing intensive subject in terms of testing. Don't get me wrong, each subject has an insane amount of writing, but ESS is a little bit different and just a tiny bit more. Here's why.
ESS is not structured like any humanities test, and not particularly like a sciences test. You have many, many questions, with most requiring essay-style responses. You get no paper or time to plan your responses and barely enough time to even finish completing the exam (you really do struggle to ever finish the exam).
In comparison to HL History, you get some time to plan out how you'll respond and you're relatively prepared for what topic you'll be covering. In comparison to HL Psychology, there are only a few large essays and you have specific time allocated to completing those alone. On top of this, each essay is covering a very specific topic you've already prepared for in advance. In ESS, you can cover literally any or all topics you've covered over the whole time you've been in the IB. That's a lot of information, and not a lot of guidance. There are no topic specific sections since everything is in the same exam.
Psychology
Psychology, at both SL and HL, is not too difficult if you know the syllabus like your life depends on it. If you follow it throughout your time in the IB, understanding what's expected of you becomes much clearer. I was told in Pre-IB and IB1 that there were HEAPS of studies you needed to remember (excess of 30 studies). However, if you really know what's expected from you in the final exams and you understand what topics & studies overlap with given topics, you can narrow the amount of studies to a total of approximately 15 studies and therefore Psych is really not too difficult at all.
For instance, some topic covered in your Paper 1 may require your knowledge of Topic A. To demonstrate your understanding of Topic A, you have prepared a Study 1 to discuss Topic A. If you take the time to understand how to approach Topic B in Paper 2, you may also find that Study 1 can ALSO be used in Paper 2 then. In this way, instead of using many different studies for many topics, try to look at all the possible ways a single study can be used in different topics.
As a whole, I would say that Psych is a subject for those that are willing to take a good, close look at the Psych Guide and understand how to cut corners wherever possible. Psych is really about the quality of your studies and analysis of them rather than how many you know. Therefore, if you see yourself as someone equally interested in memorisation but equally invested in trying to bend the rules a bit (which does require quite a bit of energy to figure out how to do), Psych would be the subject for you.
IA
The Psych IA was probably the easiest IA I did during my time in the IB, as you're essentially replicating an old Psych study and adding a bit of originality. I found that this element of creativity which was still valid in an experimental setting was one of the most difficult elements of the whole assignment. Finding if your "creative" addition influences what your Independent Variable (IV) is or your Dependent Variable (DV), or changes the inherent purpose of the original study was one of the hardest dilemmas for our group to overcome. Otherwise, there are smaller but still important issues to consider during any person's Psych IA process.
Here are a list of issues that nearly everyone comes across during it:
- figuring out how to incorporate originality, and understanding what this originality will concretely influence
- are you only changing the IV or DV, or are you changing both?
- timing and planning when younger students will take part in your IA
- coming up with an appropriate and accurate Research Question (RQ)
- understanding if your RQ requires you creating any necessary pilot studies
- understanding if this is necessary is reliant on you identifying major holes in your research that could skew your results later down the line
As you can see, most of your issues will come up in the very first stages of making the IA. I personally found that the Psych IA is one of those assignments that you dedicate a lot of time to coming up with an appropriate plan for, but less time is needed once you've perfected the plan. By following through and having considered the potential issues in the beginning, you can already see what holes may come up that you can discuss in your evaluation of the study (at the end of the IA).
History
Subject
History is similar to Psychology in that you really need to understand the IB History Guide as much as possible as early as possible. The reason for this is quite simple: History has literally hundreds of options to choose from for your final exam papers, and you need to know exactly the ones you want to study. You will probably find that your teacher seems to whiz through many different and completely unrelated topics and you may not even know if you can use the knowledge for your Paper 1, 2, or 3. Each paper has different subsections with main topics that need to be covered. In Paper 2 & 3, you need to further pick a certain amount of specific case studies and periods within these subsections.
Keep in mind this key thought if you're going to study history. Your teacher might:
- cover topics you can't stand and dread having to study for the final exams
- cover an overwhelming amount of topics to "give you options for your finals"
With this in mind, you do not have to study everything covered in class for your finals. Almost always, teachers try to give as much information as possible to their students, and History students definitely get the brunt of this workload. However, this workload can be avoided: learn what's expected from you in the History Guide and, as you go through class work, highlight the topics you've covered. You can drastically cut your workload if you're completely sure of what topics you're sure you won't study and will switch out for something you can study alone at home. If I had learnt that I didn't need to study EVERYTHING the teacher taught us, History would've been a pretty stress-free subject.
IA
The History IA, if you start early enough, is not very stressful. It has 3 major sections, and each one is quite short. If you understand the basic critical techniques taught in the class, you can do quite well without too many hiccups.
In its most basic sense, the IA includes:
- finding 2 main sources to talk about a topic
- unpacking the strengths and limitations of using each source (Section 1)
- analysing the topic you've chosen using these 2 main sources along with other sources (Section 2)
- reflecting on the process of writing the whole IA (Section 3)
The major issues students have during the History IA includes:
- realising the topic they've chosen to cover is either way too broad or way too narrow
- "too broad" refers to having too much information on a topic to provide a comprehensive analysis of your topic, and therefore makes it look like you haven't considered all the possible arguments/perspectives
- "too narrow" refers to when the topic chosen has too little information OR when the only information available to you is from only 1 specific perspective (therefore you're limited in being able to contrast views and can't pursue the topic)
- finding two main sources that are contrasting in their views on the topic you've chosen (not completely necessary but still what students should aim for)
- finding that the 2 chosen main sources are actually not used very much at all during the Section 2
Overall, finding sources and a suitable topic are the main struggles of a History student. These struggles essentially rely on you reading a lot. However, these are issues that you face mostly at the beginning of the IA writing process. After you've figured out what to do, writing the IA itself is not very difficult for most students.
English Lang&Lit
Most students in the IB will choose English as an A Language in the IB and the course divisions of this subjects usually range from Language, Literature, or Language & Literature (Lang&Lit). I ended up having Lang&Lit as my course since that was the only one offered in my school.
Subject
The "Language" side of the course analyses how specific words and phrases can be used to illicit certain feelings in the reader and for what purpose (popular elements of this side of the course may focus on propaganda, advertising, representation of race in media, etc.).
The "Literature" side of the course focuses on the works of authors, wherein the teacher usually selects certain material for students to analyse in conjunction with their newfound knowledge from the "Language" part of the course. Usually in this course, teachers switch between the two parts of the course so you learn how each are interconnected with each other.
The assignments covered during the IB change every few years, however during my time in the IB these were covered:
- 2 Written Tasks
- 1 Individual Oral Commentary
- 2 Further Oral Assessments
I've written a post earlier about what is exactly expected from you within each of these assignments and how to tackle them yourself without getting too stressed out about them in this post. These assignments constitute a much larger of your final grade than in other subjects (the final exams in English Lang&Lit only account for 50% of your final grade!).
Other than these assignments and studying for the finals, English Lang&Lit does not have much homework. Keep in mind, though, that this is primarily due to the assignments given to you taking up most of your time. I would say that I learnt the most about my everyday life from English Lang&Lit: this subject gives you the opportunity to be much more critical about the media you see in your day-to-day life, and also gives you some insight even into how movies and TV series may use certain techniques you can also find in literature!
Other than these assignments and studying for the finals, English Lang&Lit does not have much homework. Keep in mind, though, that this is primarily due to the assignments given to you taking up most of your time. I would say that I learnt the most about my everyday life from English Lang&Lit: this subject gives you the opportunity to be much more critical about the media you see in your day-to-day life, and also gives you some insight even into how movies and TV series may use certain techniques you can also find in literature!
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