Extended Essay: Biology or Psychology?

[Guest azntastic]

Hey guys ^^

I'm a junior right now, and I'm debating between two main topics.

Biology: Cancer cell inhibition (or something along those lines)

Psychology: Body language (implications, effects etc) I was thinking something about lying, or attraction.

I'm more interested in the psychology question, because I've always been interested in that stuff. However, I've been reading up on posts, and alot of posts seems to indicate that psych essay guidelines are hard, and that they don't get good scores easily etc

so, I'm looking into the Bio aspect

Biology wise, I've done some prelim research, and it's very very hard to find something I could replicate with the resources I have at my disposal at school.

Please give me some advice, any at all is welcome.

Thanks, people

[El Che]

One of my classmates wrote on malaria in Biology and everything was OK until she gave in the paper. Her supervisor is not experienced at all with IB and when she sent my friend's essay to a friend of hers, this person told her that Biology EE should have some data in it, which should be analyzed throughout. Now, she's writing another Biology EE. My advice would be that you should choose a very decent supervisor who has experience with what IB requires. Otherwise, my friend told me it's quite easy to write up to 4000 words. On the other hand, another friend of mine wrote stuttering and its psychological aspects. As far as I know, Psychology doesn't require any data, but I'm not sure what other specific requirements it does. In my opinion, you should choose Biology if you can test any data on the topic, otherwise Psychology. Good luck!

[Sandwich]

I think Psychology is one of those subjects where, unless you take it, you're liable to go off course. If there's an extremely good psychology EE supervisor at your school who you can be sure would really help you get the direction right, you might be okay. However, it's one of the more inadvisable subjects to pursue an essay in unless you're actually studying it. If you do try to do a Psychology EE, really really really watch that you're doing the right kinds of things and meeting the Psych EE requirements.

Biology, I agree, that topic isn't going to go anywhere. You can't possibly do an experiment at school or under your own steam. The only way in which you could do this is if you could find somebody at a local University interested in that area of research and willing to supervise you doing some simple experiments with known interruptors of the cell cycle or something. I say simple because cancer cell biology is actually (unsurprisingly) very intricate and complicated. A purely research based EE would be damn hard to write, but would also score very poorly.

If you do an EE in Biology you have to aim for something which can be translated into an experiment within your school lab.

[kim luffy]

I agree with the other posts. Psychology is not really an advisable topic to do an EE on. My friends right now are still struggling with it while the rest of us are done. You need to have a really good supervisor who knows all the guidelines and will help you through out. If you do happen to get a really good one though, you might have a chance.

As for biology, that topic, like sandwich said, would be hard to do.You could aim to do something more simpler like how certain substances can affect the heart rate (An EE my friend did in Biology). If you're school doesn't have the resources, you can still go somewhere else like to another school perhaps? that has those resources, which is what my classmates did since our school lacks in certain lab equipment. Also, you need to find a good supervisor for the Biology EE as well.

Edited January 6, 2012 by kim luffy

[Guest azntastic]

Thanks for the help guys ^^

I think I'm settling into something like

"How does epinephrine afffect certain tissue (Maybe like a frog or something)"

[Kaydotelle]

I might be a little biased, but i'd say go for the Psychology EE. It helps if you take Psych of course, but I think it's doable without. I had little help from my EE supervisor except for a few tips and spell checks. I did my EE on "to what extent is absolute pitch in music influenced by biological factors?", and I got an A. Choose a topic you are really passionate in, because starting was fine, but halfway through that 4000 words was a killer! But if you are interested you will be motivated to keep going. If you do pick a psychology EE, make sure you critically analyse your findings. For some reason I didn't do too well in HL psych, but I got an AA in my EE. *shrugs* anything can happen!

Edited January 14, 2012 by Kaydotelle

[marauder7]

Personally I'd go for the Psychology EE.

In Biology I think you have to do experimentation, and it is very hard to get an A.

In Psychology you just have to analyze research. It is ok if you do body language, but you would have to find research related to it.

An example of a topic, if you are interested in biological psychology, would be: analyzing the strenghts and limitations of biological therapy (drug treatment, brain surgery, electroshocks) in the treatment of a disorder (depression, PSTD, Schizophrenia, etc).

But if there are no good Psychology advisors at your school, then write the Biology one. Because if you are not taking the subject it will be hard.

[RileyGreen]

On 1/6/2012 at 12:05 PM, kim luffy said:

I agree with the other posts. Psychology is not really an advisable topic to do an EE on. My friends right now are still struggling with it while the rest of us are done. You need to have a really good supervisor who knows all the guidelines and will help you through out. If you do happen to get a really good one though, you might have a chance.

As for biology, that topic, like sandwich said, would be hard to do.You could aim to do something more simpler like how certain substances can affect the heart rate (An EE my friend did in Biology). If you're school doesn't have the resources, you can still go somewhere else like to another school perhaps? that has those resources, which is what my classmates did since our school lacks in certain lab equipment. Also, you need to find a good supervisor for the Biology EE as well.

hey y I'm thinking of doing something related to what your friend did. Could you tell me who did she conduct the experiment translating it to the lab instead of experimentan on people, please?