Subjects

Hello fellow IBers!

Our plan for today's post is to talk about IB subjects in all their glory. Yey!

Together us Four - one has joined to our glorious group, the lovely and beautiful SusanMoreen - Musketeers have Biology (SL&HL), History (SL&HL), Mathematics (HL&SL), Finnish (HL), English (HL), French (SL) and Business&Management (HL) and Physics (SL). Our school's IB Programme in Finland also provides Visual Arts which we couldn't get in our school due to a lack of students. We won't have time to go through all of these in one post, but today we will focus on Biology and Physics as subjects.

To begin, from nearly all these subjects, we will have to write an Internal Assessment on a subject that we can choose ourselves. The only exceptions are in English and Mathematics where in English class we will have to perform an oral presentation which will be recorded and sent to the head, the IBO. Sounds scary? We think so too. In mathematics we will be writing up an exploration on whatever you want with just one term: it has to be related to math, as you can imagine.

A few weeks ago, we had our first legit IB test week, where we had depending on the subject, either two or three papers, Paper 1 and Paper 2 and in some cases Paper 3 (like Higher Level Biology). It can be said that the tests were quite challenging, because we had a limited time period where every minute has to be taken advantage of, especially in Mathematics where you have to earn one point per minute. Not to scare you guys too much, but this is what you will face sooner or later in the IB programme.

So, let's talk about Biology! Basically our fall term of IB1 in Biology has consisted of several lab works and reports with quite a bit of theory on extremely small things like DNA and cells. For Standard Level students, the exam consists of two papers; paper 1 consists of multiple choice questions (25% chance to get it right even if you haven't got the faintest clue!) as for paper 2 has short answer questions and one long answer question. For HL, there is one additional paper, Paper 3, there is another long answer question to tackle. Biology is a great choice if you are truly interested in life, but if you think you are choosing biology over chemistry, YOU ARE WRONG. We will give you three words: Chemistry of life. You cannot get by without knowing some chemistry in biology, atleast not here in our school. Biology isn't an easy choice as a subject but it is worth while to consider it seriously and there is a lot to be learned about in which you can apply to life later in life.

Our new member has Physics, which us other Three Musketeers do not have. Physics can be a very difficult subject in Higher Level aswell in Standard Level. But we ensure you, it is fun. The first exam week test contained of Paper 1 and Paper 2. Paper 1 once again included multiple choice questions where you have a 25% chance to circle the correct question and Paper 2 which consists mostly of calculations and short answer questions. We cannot tell you about Higher Level physics quite yet, but we will try to obtain an interview from other IB students from the other grades who may have some time to tell us all about it. In Physics you will also have experiments along with the core studies and yes, you will have to write up a report on it. Currently in our Physics class, the results haven't been as good as with the Biology students, but we are hoping for a great change in that issue. We are certain that with enough effort, time and passion you can survive this subject!

Unfortunately, we do not have IB Chemistry in our school but we will hope to pull some strings and get another interview for you and talk a bit more on that later. As for now, our class is starting so we must get back to studying, sayonara for this week friends!

Starting up

    Once upon a time there was an IB dummy who failed for the reason of not reading the holy blog of IB for Dummies. What can be learnt from this horrid event? NOT TO MAKE THAT MISTAKE EVER AGAIN!!!!!!!!!
    Divine.
    And who are these magnificent creators of this holy blog, you may ask?
    -We go by the name of The Three Musketeers from an anonomous IB school in Finland. Creative, huh?

    The word IB stands for International Baccalaureate, and as for that long thing-a-ma-jig we have no incling of what it stands for. Sorry. Us, The Three Musketeers, we are in our middle term of IB, the first year after pre-DP to be exact. After about three and a half months of being official IB students, we have experienced a lot of fear, anxiety, hope, failure and many...Oh so many, sleepless nights. To keep us going until the bitter or sweet end - most likely bitter - we have got to have our eyes on the prize which is indeed the end of this 2-year torture experience. Hopefully to be rewarding..
 
   Anyways, IB consists of Theory of Knowledge, CAS (Creativity, Action & Service), the much-dreaded Extended Essay on any subject you like, the Internal Assessments on most subjects, MOCKs and finally, the highlight of our adventure that we have just embarked upon, the FINAL EXAMS... To be honest, we have only finished our first real IB test week a few weeks back, and haven't got much experience on the other aspects of IB, however we are willing to keep you updated with the events, assessments and what not, to have you IB newbies prepared for your first year. Sound good?

  We won't dig too deep into the subjects - so that we won't run out of things to talk about - so, basically we will do our best, weekly, to get you IB dummies aware of the adventure that you will soon face like us. We sure wish that we would have had something like this in pre-DP...

  That is all for now, we must return to our studies. See you next week dummies!