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Japanese B SL Details


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Hi guys! I'm taking Japanese B SL Paper 1 and 2 exams in May, and I'm kind of freaking out because (long story short, my teacher is kind of incompetent) no one at my school seems to be able to tell me a lot of details, so I was hoping people here might be able to help

1. What are the approximate grade boundaries (how many points is a 7, 6, 5 etc) for the Individual Oral, Writing Assignment, Paper 1 and Paper 2?

2. I've been hearing about a list of kanji/vocabulary necessary for the IB exams, does anyone know where I can get that?

3. Is it true that there has been changes to Paper 1 (the removal of part D) because of the Writing Assignment? That was something my IB coordinator mentioned but said he wasn't sure of...

4. For your writing assignment, were you guys told the topic in advance? Based on reading the Language B guide, it seems we were supposed to be told the topic in advance, but we weren't...

If anyone could help with any of the questions, that would be great!

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1) Paper 1 - 32/40 for 7, 27/40 for 6, 22/40 for 5.

Paper 2 and written assignment - 22/25 for 7, 18/25 for a 6, ~14/25 for a 5.

Individual Oral - 17/20 for a 7, 14/20 for a 6, about 11/20 for a 5.

2) There is a list of kanji, it consists of about 400 at SL. Lots of them (between 100 and 200) are very basic ones, I studied them in my UK GCSEs (obviously I know nothing of your Japanese previous education and I don't expect you to know about GCSEs. It is roughly equivalent to doing ab initio from ages 11-16) You can find it on the internet, I'm not allowed to link it for copyright reasons, but give it a google search. There are 3 pages, 200 on each, with the 3rd page being an extra 200 for HL. The kanji list is not exhaustive of everything they will use, it just gives you a great start, and the catch is that they don't give us a list of the combinations of the compounds they will use - this would be an impossibly long list. Just aim to know as many of those readings as possible!

3) Yes, there is no more Part D for the paper 1. We do not yet know what it will be as this is the first year without it, but it is likely to just be another Part C sort of thing.

4) I think I was told the topic in advance, yes. It won't be a topic you haven't studied yet though... I did it on the environment.

Are you doing your japanese exams in May 2014 or in a week? It says you are a 2014 but you just said 'in May'.. My Japanese exam is on May 10th :P

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Thank you so much for all your help! Just to make sure (and in the interest of being a keener IB student that checks sources :P) where did you get the grade boundaries and info about part D being removed? Just wondering especially since the writing assignment has never been done before so idk how they would get grade boundaries...

Also, my school is kind of weird because our schedule is a semester system, so all IB students do their Language B exams in May of their grade 11 year, and their 5 other subjects in May of grade 12. So yes, I am graduating next year, Language B is the only exam i'm doing this year, on May 10th as well. Good luck!

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Ahh I see, well that just seems ridiculous if you haven't been allowed to study it as long? Good luck anyhow! And we assumed that the Paper 2 and Written Assignment will have the same boundaries - it may change, who knows? As you say it's the first year.

Out of interest, what grammar points are you taught? Wondering if the IB specifies. We know things like tokoro, wake, tsumori/yotei, you ni/sou ni, conditionals (to, ba, tara, nara), spontaneous, potential, nagara, sugiru, (na) no ni, to omou/kangaeru, tari tari shimasu, relative clauses, passive, causative, kamoshirenai/ni chigai nai, beki, rashii, hazu, verb plain + koto, the list goes on.... just wondering if youre taught all of these, or other things :)

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uhhh yeah we have pretty much everything on that list except for wake, beki, and spontaneous, but those are things i self-studied anyway

and yeah, the list goes on, but i'm guessing yours is more extensive :P

and yeah it's not a great system, but because we're in semesters, it's kind of impossible to have 6 classes a day :P

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