No.

The EE pairing process of students with a qualified supervisor is a complex task. This process is fully supported by the High School Administration and no exception will be tolerated.

No.

You are explicitly told in writing that filling the EE proposal form means that you have understood the pairing conditions. The EE Coordinator will not assign you a different subject.

No.

You are also told explicitly on the EE - proposal form that filling it in implies that you have read and understood the specific requirements for both the subjects you selected. This is your responsibility.

Your role as the student completing the Extended Essay is to ensure that you have a clear understanding of the expectations regarding your research. It is your responsibility to dig into the IB Extended Essay Guide and to read the pages for the subject you are researching so that you understand the specificities of the research you are expected to conduct.

The Extended Essay aims at fostering independence and initiative-taking for the students so be proactive and look for the information you need or ask around you.

Rather than the amount of time, what proves efficient is regularity. Working every week for 90 minutes on a specific day is more efficient than working 7 straight hours before a major deadline.

One piece of advice that can be given to you is to choose one day in the week when you know that your schedule is not too packed. Block 60~90 minutes on that specific day for the EE and stick to it: this time can be used to read sources, to prepare for data collection, to write down information to be used later, etc.

There is no final answer to this question: some students need more guidance than others because the subject they research may require them to ask more to their supervisors. It is a good idea to keep track of the time you spend with your supervisor so that you do not go over the allocated 5 hours maximum.

Just remember that your supervisor is here to support you and guide you: communicate with them when things do not seem to go right but also when things are fine! Just keep them in the loop about how you are doing with the EE. But don't harass them either.

The answer is available on p.46 of the Extended Essay Guide (available in the resources section of this Handbook)

The supervisor plays an important role in helping students to plan and undertake their research for the extended essay. The relationship should be an active two-way process with the supervisor primarily there to support and guide the student, during the supervision and reflection sessions, at the planning stage, and when the student is carrying out and writing up their research. This is done through the supervision process, including the three mandatory reflection sessions and the completion of the Reflections on

planning and progress form.

It is the responsibility of the supervisor to ensure that students are familiar with the requirements of the extended essay. Supervisors and students must discuss:

• the nature of the extended essay

• their chosen subject, topic and research question

• the most appropriate research methods to be used given the subject for which the student is submitting their essay

• the formal requirements for the completion of the task.

The straight answer is "no". The matching or pairing process aims at ensuring equity for all the students in the same cohort.

The check-in sessions with your supervisor are informal meetings that you plan with your supervisor when you feel the need for guidance or advice: it can range from 10min to longer amount of time as you see fit. But remember that there is a 5 hour total limit.

The formal reflection sessions are the mandatory meetings with your supervisor at the beginning, in the middle and at the end of the process. These are usually longer meetings ranging from 20 to 30 minutes or more. For example the Final Meeting can actually take more than 30 minutes, depending on your reflection and your supervisor's feedback.

Kind of. It is called 'supervisor's comments' and there is no word limit to them. The supervisor is required to complete these comments after the Final Meeting, which also implies that they have read your final Extended Essay.

They are expected to comment on the process and provide the EE examiner with any piece of information that cannot be visible in your final Extended Essay, for example: whether you faced tremendous difficulties to gather sources or data for your research; how often you met with your supervisor; how engaged you were in the process; if there were specific challenges that you had to face in the course of your research; etc.

The supervisor is not supposed to formulate a judgement about your Extended Essay: this is the role of the examiner. For this reason, they are not supposed to indicate what grade they think your EE deserves.

Nothing prevents it. But it is not recommended as each subject has specific expectations and the EE examiners for a given subject will expect the students to have a specific understanding and command of certain concepts proper to the subject. For example, it will be very challenging to write an EE in Psychology if you have never studied the subject before. But it is not impossible.

The easiest answer to this question is to reach out to your EE Coordinator. Check the email adress at the bottom of the page!

You should probably approach your supervisor and ask for their advice. What matters in the Extended Essay is your analysis of the information or data you are going to extract from a variety of sources. To give you a concrete example: a student working in History on the rise of nazism in 1930's Germany would probably find useful information in Hitler's Mein Kampf, in spite of the sulfurous reputation surrounding the book. Using this document for historical research seems fine. Expressing explicit support of the opinions developed in it, on the other hand, is not acceptable.

There is no final answer to this question as each subject and each topic may require you to gather a lot of information while other subjects or topics may not. Ultimately, it is not about the quantity of information but about the quality of the information. Also remember that your Essay relies heavily on the quality of your analysis, not on the number of sources you have gathered.

Three. No more and no less: the form is designed to contain only three. An empty box in the form would cost you points for Criterion E (Engagement).

You are given a word space of 500 words maximum for the three reflections combined.

This is a hard limit and the EE examiner is explicitly requested to ensure that this limit is not exceeded. If it is, it will cost you points.

There is no final answer to this question as every situation is different but a reasonable rule of thumb would be to consider allocating words as follows:

• 100-150 words for the 1st reflection (after the First Meeting)

• 100-150 words for the 2nd reflection (after the Interim Meeting)

• 250-300 words for the 3rd reflection (after the Viva voce Interview or the Final Meeting)

You are expected to post your reflections on specific dates through the entire process and they must not be edited to guarantee the authenticity of your reflection. There can be exceptions, for example if you happen to have included the school name, your supervisor's or your own name in the reflections. If you think that you need to edit your reflections, you need to approach your Supervisor and get their approval first then reach out to the Extended Essay Coordinator who will then confirm with your Supervisor. If all this is checked and there is a need for edition, only then will you be allowed to edit your reflections only for the portions that need to be edited.

Yes, it is.

Some examiners will want to read the Reflection, Planning and Progress Form prior to reading a student's Extended Essay. Some examiners would do that after reading the Essay. In all cases, they will count the words on the form for your three reflections: seasoned examiners can visually see a form that is clearly exceeding the word limit. If in doubt they will not hesitate to count manually.

Writing beyond the word limit would cost you points and this could make your essay shift from a letter grade to the one below or even worse.

No, absolutely not!

You might find outdated information on the internet and you need to ignore that: since 2015 and the new Extended Essay curriculum, the abstract is no longer a requirement. You should use the word space for the introduction, the body or the conclusion of your Extended Essay.

One of the best resources out there is the Purdue OWL (Online Writing Lab).

It can provide you with all the information you are looking for from the basics to the more advanced subtleties such as citing sources that may be more exotic.

All the details are on pages 82 to 85 of the IB Extended Essay Guide.

No: what the IB names the "headers" is the very top portion of each page that can contain information repeated across the same document. Sometimes, students choose to put their Research Question in the header section to remind the examiner what their essay is focused upon.

The portion of text in this section does not count towards the word limit. The titles of your sections within the essay are considered parts of the essay itself and for this reason, they must be accounted for in the word limit.

Yes, it is.

Examiners are explicitly required to ignore any portion beyond the 4000 allocated words (or 8000 characters for Essays written in Japanese). Ignoring this rule could lead to your essay failing to have a conclusion, which could cost you an important number of points across the different criteria of assessment. This could make your essay move several letter grades down.