Internal Assessments: B&M and an A-Language

This week we are continuing on the subject of Internal Assessments; we have quite a few under progress now and we are all ready to discuss them all with you! This is all to ensure you will not have any surprises when you walk into the real deal IB Diploma - or if you already are and finding about all this now, well, you have bigger fish to fry. 

Anywhoozles, today we are talking about the Internal Assessment of Business & Management and an A-language which in this case will be about Finnish once again. 

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A Literature: Finnish (HL)

In Finnish, we have started working on our Written Assignments (again, these are not called Internal Assessment, but work as the same thing). It is an essay based on a translated book read in class which has to be around 1200-1500 words. 

So far, we have chosen the topics for our essay and had our teacher approve them. Now we will have to start planning and writing the essay since the first draft is due in already a month. After we've given our first drafts to the teacher, she will read them through and sit with each of us individually, giving us feedback. 

Teachers are not allowed to write anything down on them so the feedback has to be done orally. Our teacher said that in the past, some students have written down the feedback and many students have recorded it. This is the only chance that your teacher can revise your work, so make sure that you write a proper first draft and listen carefully to the feedback you're given!

Here are the basics just in case:

1. Students submit a reflective statement and literary essay on one work studied in Part 1
2. The reflective statement must be 300–400 words in length.
3. The essay must be 1,200–1,500 words in length.

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Business & Management (HL)

In Business and Management, we have started on our Internal Assessments already about a month ago. We had to start thinking about our research questions - which is extremely difficult and time consuming, believe you me. It is vital for you to have a good and answerable question to get a good grade in this Internal Assessment and just saying, your first questions will probably not be the ones you will be researching by the end of the summer break. This is what we have done this far:

As you all know, IAs are written in every subject and thus, Business & Management is no different. The IA is 25% of the final grade (surprise surprise…) and it consists of a 500 word research proposal and action plan as well as the 2000 word written report (go over, and you will be penalized by minus points!). 

So for the IA you have to choose an organization that is facing some kind of an issue, BUT the organization should have the following characteristics:

1. Must be a real organization
2. Issue or decision under discussion must also be real
3. Must be able to collect primary data (surveys, interviews etc.) HL ONLY!

Here are a few tips for finding a good Research Question - when the time comes. 

• It's relevant to the business going forward (not a question that has already been resolved or likely to be resolved)
• It should take the form 'Should____ in order to____?'
• Facilitates itself to a quantitative and qualitative cost/benefit analysis
• Can also be a decision between two options 'Should___ or ___?'
• Do a lot of research and ensure you have enough data to make something out of your research question! This is where most questions end up being thrown out and replaced with new ones (At least in our cases) 

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That is all for this week's post, tune in next week for more tips and information!