Is IB HL math the hardest pre-university math course?

[aahmedov]

Always wondered

[Sandwich]

Supposedly SL Further Maths is meant to be the hardest in the IB. I suspect it's pretty bloody hard relative to the world as well, but who knows!

[IBCONQUERER]

Depends on the person and in what context as well! Math HL is hard to alot of people but more get 7's in it than in English HL which is considered easier. I wouldn't say its the hardest.

[Sandwich]

Depends on the person and in what context as well! Math HL is hard to alot of people but more get 7's in it than in English HL which is considered easier. I wouldn't say its the hardest.

I think they meant the 'hardest pre-university maths course' to be all one thing At least so I assumed! So English HL wouldn't be a pre-university maths course.

[aldld]

Depends on the person and in what context as well! Math HL is hard to alot of people but more get 7's in it than in English HL which is considered easier. I wouldn't say its the hardest.

I think they meant the 'hardest pre-university maths course' to be all one thing At least so I assumed! So English HL wouldn't be a pre-university maths course.

I'd say English HL is a very difficult pre-university math course, when the teacher doesn't even mention anything at all mathematical.

Edited July 26, 2012 by aldld

[Vincent Casey F]

Depends on the person and in what context as well! Math HL is hard to alot of people but more get 7's in it than in English HL which is considered easier. I wouldn't say its the hardest.

That's just the matter of grade boundaries. It's easier to get a 7 in Math HL than in English HL (percentage wise).

I've heard that further maths is a little bit harder than Math HL (only 100 or so people take it each year as far as I know) and I'm assuming that's the hardest pre-university math course there is. But again, who knows? I'm from Iran and I remember grade 11 and 12 back home had 5 math books each (one for geometry, one for calculus, and so on). I also know that in South Korea math is really really hard too. This kid in our school got a 7 in Math HL while being a full time drummer of a well stablished band. He said Math HL wasn't a big challenge for him. He said Maths in Korea is harder. So.. really who knows?

Edited July 27, 2012 by Vincent Casey F

[aldld]

That's just the matter of grade boundaries. It's easier to get a 7 in Math HL than in English HL (percentage wise).

Then again, I don't have the statistics to back this up, but don't more people take English HL than Math HL? When students are deciding what courses to take, English HL generally sounds more accessible to most students than Math HL, so you end up with more students taking English HL, including lower-performing students who bring down the percentage of students that achieve a 7. On the other hand, Math HL has a reputation of being a difficult course, attracting mainly students who are confident in their mathematical abilities and are willing to put in the time and effort into achieving high grades.

[IBCONQUERER]

I must have been very sleepy to not read the Math on the title, but further math SL is harder than Math HL! And you cannot conclusively say it is the hardest, the local Tanzanian curriculum advanced math is much much harder, they do second order differential equations and integrating multi-variable functions which is not dealt with in HL at all. At least not prior to 2014 examinations.

Edited July 28, 2012 by IBCONQUERER

[Zarathustra]

Mathematics HL is a reasonably hard course, in the sense that even with below average prior education it is possible to score high (and get a 7!). It is really a matter of doing exercises and solve IB style questions.

Further Mathematics SL is, in my opinion, fairly harder: it is almost impossible to score high without previous knowledge of a large part of the Mathematics HL syllabus (Taylor expansions are impossible to tackle without knowledge of calculus, and you aren't going far in graph theory without knowing matrices!). But again: if you took part in Olympiads and competitions and were fairly successful then the Geometry and Discrete Mathematics options are almost trivial.

If a student is very passionate then FM SL is doable even without knowledge of Maths HL. Starting with Geometry and then Sets, Relations and Groups which require virtually no knowledge of Math HL should be fine because after finishing both the average Math HL student is acquainted with calculus from the Math HL class (or one could go on teaching the number theory part of Discrete Mathematics which also doesn't really require any previous knowledge).

In the world there are some special schools which are designed for gifted children (I know some in Russia and Serbia, there might be others in Asia I guess). Their syllabus goes well beyond what is expected from the average HL student and in some fields it also outmatches what is required from the average Math graduate, so no, I don't think IB Mathematics is the hardest in the world (although it is harder than what the average western student will ever be taking!).

Edited August 15, 2012 by Zarathustra

[macrofire]

This all depends on whether you believe Further Math IB is more "university math" or pre-university math. Just because it's taken before one normally goes to university doesn't mean it can't be counted as a university math course in that sense. Please be more precise.

[Zarathustra]

This all depends on whether you believe Further Math IB is more "university math" or pre-university math. Just because it's taken before one normally goes to university doesn't mean it can't be counted as a university math course in that sense. Please be more precise.

IB Further Maths covers topics that are usually only found at university level. However, the depth at which they are covered is more of a general overwiev, is NOT formal university level mathematics, with very detailed proofs etc. Still, because it is taken at grammar school, it is obviously not university math. Maybe in a Liberal Arts college this can be somehow comparable with what you would be doing, but I guarantee you that you won't be able to cope with people that are doing their freshman year at a university in continental Europe. Probably, it is indeed the hardest pre-uni maths course in Western Europe and North America but doesn't really require the rigidity and formality of a serious Math undergraduate course in Europe, imho. It is hard because it requires prior knowledge of topics that aren't usually covered before entering the final two years of high school or it requires being a very passionate student that actually self studied many topics himself (and because it is not really university level some questions may actually seem trivial for the kind of student who has actually seen/self studied the same topic at university level).

Hence, without prior knowledge or passion it may actually be impossible to really succeed in FM SL even for fairly talented/significantly above average students.

IB Mathematics HL somehow equals A Level Further Mathematics imho. You can chose from different options but if you take the Series/Differential Equations one you actually get the A Level Further Mathematics + Mathematics combo (maybe you study slightly less topics but the questions are harder and hence the boundaries are lower: I still think the IB is slightly superior because less people get 7s than A*s and because the whole modules system makes it just way easier, imho). I don't think Australia, Canada or the US have harder pre-uni courses harder than IB Math HL or A Levels FM (AP Calculus BC may be fairly good for calculus but US students never really do any matrices, vectors, etc and way too many people get 5s anyway...) hence that is why IB Math HL is perceived as the hardest course in those countries (also because FM SL is exotic and very few schools offer it; moreover, the UK, US, etc don't have an equal to FM SL, A Level Additional Further Mathematics is silly compared to FM SL).

However East European and Asian countries have a tremendous tradition in Math and there actually exist special schools for gifted students in those countries. Because of the extraordinaty talent of this students it is not so difficult to imagine that what they actually do is harder than IB FM SL. Hence IB Math is not the hardest in the world (and Math HL is definitely not the hardest, because FM SL > M HL anyway).

Edited August 15, 2012 by Zarathustra