A Guide to the IB

IB1 is the big year of change. Your teacher starts loading on the Internal Assessments (IAs), expects you to have an idea for you Extended Essay (EE), you should start and finish your TOK Oral Presentation, you have Written Assignments due, and finally you start having your Individual Oral Commentaries for your language subjects! It's definitely a stressful workload to start off with, and most students are left unprepared. Even then, I still found IB1 to be my most enjoyable year in high school, since I still had the opportunity to travel all over Europe ( check out this link to find out how EYP helped me do this! ) and start working part-time, while balancing my studies. Because of all of this, I'd say my experience in IB1 was also the most mixed year ever, with lots of highs and lots of lows. To make the process of you going to IB1 easier, today I'll be answering the essential question: what should you expect when you go to IB1?  Initial EE Planning i...

Theory of Knowledge is a key subject that is only offered in the IB and makes for some very interesting and thought-provoking lessons. Some people find them a bit dry, while others (like me!) feel like its the perfect introduction into philosophical concepts. In this post, I will be giving you a summary of all the essential information you need to know for doing TOK and the assessment components in the subject.  Before beginning this article, I would recommend you first familiarise yourself with all the essential Theory of Knowledge (TOK) Terminology you will need to know to understand the subject and its components fully. Here's a post I did on TOK terminology that goes into detail about all the different terms you should know. This post is meant to cover all of the basics of the assessment in TOK, including the TOK Oral Presentation and TOK Essay. I have separate posts for how to complete every assessment component from start to finish and will be activating the links...

The IB can be a treacherous place for newcomers from middle school, but what exactly is different? Today, I'll be talking about some of the many ways in which studying in the IB is a bit different from middle school! How different is the workload? The general consensus on the IB workload is that it's barely tolerable and is super difficult to get through: as soon as you get home from studying at school, you study at home until you sleep and you have NO time for extracurriculars or socialisation. Well, I do have to admit that the longer you're in the IB, the more work you have. My middle school experience: While in middle school, I didn't get that much homework (at most maybe an hour per night worth of work if I really wanted to dedicate myself to getting perfect marks). During 7th grade, I had an incredibly average GPA of around 8.4 according to the Finnish grading system out of 10: not terrible, but definitely not even close to the best GPA in class....

You might have been seeing a few mentions of EYP floating around this website, popping up randomly whenever I mention a recent trip I went on or something. Well, in this post I will be telling you why you, as a European, should be joining EYP (the European Youth Parliament)! It's an incredible volunteer-run organisation that deserves much more attention than it gets. If I'm being completely honest, you won't leave EYP without having extra knowledge: you will create friendships that will last for a lifetime (cheesy, I know), learn about politics, current affairs and (most importantly) yourself. So, what exactly are the benefits of joining EYP? 1. You learn about current affairs and collaboration The European Youth Parliament, as the name suggests, is a simulation of what the European Parliament actually does when dealing with different issues within the EU. This makes it a super fascinating experience where you can actually get super in-depth kno...

Rhyme scheme: When analysing poetry in the IB, its super common to refer to the rhyme structure of certain pieces using bundled up letters like ABAB CDCD or ABBA, and this can be confusing if you aren't familiar. To find the rhyme scheme, we are going to be looking at the sounds at the end of each line. For example: I do not like green eggs and ham. I do not like them Sam I am. I do not like them in a boat. I do not like them with a goat. - Green Eggs and Ham, Dr. Seuss When you pay attention to the sound at the ending of the line, you may notice a pattern: ham rhymes with am and boat rhymes with goat. Therefore, this follows the rhyme scheme of AA BB ( ham/am /boat/goat) An example of a more hidden rhyme scheme could be: Bid me to weep, and I will weep, While I have eyes to see; And having none, yet I will keep A heart to weep for thee. If you apply the same knowledge to this his rhyme scheme is A B A B ( weep / see / keep / thee ) Pastoral poem:...

PreIB POEM ANALYSIS: TO MY SISTER BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH Before you read on, I would like to remind you that this was written in PreIB and I WOULD NOT recommend you approach a text in the same way I do here in later poem analyses in IB1 and IB2. However, I found that organising my notes in this way when analysing really helped me get a very basic understanding of the structure of the poem and the writer's possible underlying message. I'd like to say, though, that I haven't included any notes really on the impact on the reader of the poem , which arguably is one of the most important parts of analysing a poem. However, for some type of knowledge about what type of analysis I started with and how I organised it, read on: THE POEM ITSELF   TO MY SISTER BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH IT is the first mild day of March: Each minute sweeter than before, The Redbreast sings from the tall larch That stands beside our door. There is a blessing in the air,  ...

So, you're thinking of applying to the IB in Finland and you have questions about the entrance exams? Look no further! Today, I will be delving into frequently asked questions about applying to the IB, the entrance exams you have to do and how to prepare. How do I apply to an IB High School? When you’re in 8th grade of lower secondary school, you may need to start thinking about options of continuing to upper secondary schools. You have only 5 schools you can apply to, and you should pay a lot of attention to what order you put them in when submitting your application in 9th grade. For example, in the table above, you can see that the school I wanted to get into most was the IB Programmes in Ressun Lukio, followed by Helsingin Suomalainen Yhteiskoulu (SYK), Etelä-Tapiolan Lukio (Etis), Mattlidens and Tikkurilan Lukio. Thus, my least preferred option was Tikkurila.  As for how the point scoring system works, as stated by the Ressun Lukio website: ‘Students can...