Tips from IB Examiners 3 – Multiple Choice Madness

The IB loves feedback – and believe it or not loves to receive this feedback for exams. They were disappointed this year that more teachers did not provide feedback for the Paper 1 examination and as this year the IB do request that a G2 form be filled in by as many teachers as possible discussing and commenting upon the exams and specific questions or areas that need improvement.Each year the G2 form is located in the left hand column on the OCC subject section area. There were number of questions which students struggled with often in areas where more content is needed to be learnt, revised and analysed. So areas such as materials it is important that students understand and are able to review all areas of the guide – even in areas such as shape memory alloys.

As always the most important tip is for students to read the question and highlight the main words that will link the question with the answer. A question such as 36 regarding the property that makes the metal suitable for the cutting blade of a can opener could lead to students saying there is actually more than one answer. Hardness and Stiffness. However a student must then once they have identified two answers consider what is the most important property for the can opener to work – and they should be able to deduce that hardness is a necessity otherwise the opener cannot pierce a metal lid whereas stiffness could be acceptable as the opener may have some element of flexibility and still work?

Final Tips from Examiners post coming soon – Paper 2 and 3 Long Answer Question Structure.