So what skills are required? A good way to approach this is to look at the five different assessment criteria and extract what you need to achieve to attain high marks. Remember too that many of these skills will also be required for your Extended Essay (even if it is not in Chemistry) and later when you continue their studies at university or other forms of higher education. The IB is about lifelong learning!
General skills including communication
- Accurate and careful note taking
- Essay or extended laboratory report writing
- Consistent use of accurate and scientific terminology (i.e. IUPAC and SI units)
- Academic honesty, use of citations and referencing sources
Personal engagement and exploration
- Research skills (library, Internet, journals etc.)
- Awareness and adherence to Health and Safety considerations (risk assessment)
- IB ethical experimentation policy
- Stating a sharply focused research question
- Choice of appropriate apparatus/secondary sources together with associated uncertainties
- Identification and use of independent, dependent and controlled variables
- The collection of relevant, reliable and sufficient data
Analysis and interpretation
- Correct use of labels, units and decimal points applied to tables of data
- Estimation of total uncertainties in measurements
- Setting out the data processing in a logical coherent way Use of conventions in graph plotting
- Accurate and appropriate analysis Justifying a trend or hypothesis from analysed data 1
- Explaining a trend using underlying scientific concepts
- Considering the impact of total uncertainty in measurements
- Relating a trend or experimental result to the research question Identifying limitations in recorded data
- Identifying limitations of the method and apparatus Suggesting realistic improvements