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Latest updates

8.5 Acid deposition 18 April 2022

Written specifically for students to provide help and support for the IB Diploma chemistry programme this page provides full coverage of the syllabus content of Topic 8.5 Acid depositions. It encourages... more

Data logging Free13 April 2022

A data logger is essentially a piece of equipment that records electronic signals at pre-set intervals over a period of time. Data loggers are being increasingly used in society as a whole, for example,... more

'Curly arrows'7 April 2022

The correct use of curly arrows causes real problems – both to students (and teachers) and examiners. The main reason why students fail to score marks is that they use the arrows completely wrongly... more

Using electrode potentials7 April 2022

I think the main problem with questions involving oxidation and reduction and standard electrode potentials is that teachers often teach cell convention – and many teach it wrongly. This can be seen... more

Paper 26 April 2022

Note that from May 2019 the marks per topic have been adjusted slightly so that the total is now 90 rather than 95.An example of an e-marking box more

Enquiry upon results6 April 2022

The results are sent to schools during the first week in July (or JIB Docs (2) Teamary for the November session) and the day afterwards students can log on to the IB website with their own personal code to receive... more

The examination process5 April 2022

Although not perhaps of much interest to students it can be helpful to teachers to know how the whole examination process works from start to finish. This section looks at how the papers are set, marked... more

Grade boundaries4 April 2022

It can be helpful to have a rule of thumb idea as to where the boundaries lie - particularly for giving your predicted grades. It can only be a rough rule as the boundaries do change each year and from... more

Grade descriptors1 April 2022

The exams are criterion-based rather than being norm referenced. In theory (although it is very unlikely to happen in practice!) all students could achieve the top grade of 7. The level of performance... more

Essential Facts1 April 2022

The external assessment is made up of three separate examination papers. These make up 80% of the final mark upon which the student’s IB chemistry grade is based. The remaining 20% comes from the internally... more