IB Certificate

[SigmaChad]

Dear reader,

 

I am currently a grade 11 student in Ontario who has never taken pre-IB courses or any IB courses for that matter. However, starting in my second semester of my junior year, I plan on switching out my regular courses for IBDP courses (HL CHEM, HL BIO, HL ECON or HL PHYSICS, or MATH AA SL) as a certificate student. I wanted to know the following:

1. How does SL Biology and SL Chemistry compare to Normal Ontario Biology and Chemistry. I heard that it would actually be harder to succeed in the Ontario equivalents compared to the IBDP SL equivalents. Is this true?

 

2. How will the transition be as I have never taken Pre-IB courses in my life? I am able to consistently do 24 Pomodoro cycles a day with utmost efficiency. And because of this, the typical mainstream courses have become super easy with my work ethic. I am consistently achieving 98% + in all my courses with my marks mainly being lost due to stupid errors (i.e., 5+4+1 = 15, type mistakes). I know how to study well in the courses too and the importance of question banks. Should I just not do IB as I have never done Pre-IB?

 

3. Is HL Economics basically a bird course?

 

4. Is HL physics really that difficult?

[MathEEmoment]

Considering you're doing pretty damn well in your other courses, you could give IB a shot. Here, I'm assuming you're going to try out the actual IBDP.

Let me answer your questions. 

1.) SL Chemistry and SL Biology are known to both be rigorous courses. They are by no means easy. I don't know about your local courses, but these two are standard IB courses that aren't know for being super easy. I take HL chemistry, and for me the SL chemistry content is difficult enough.

2.) The transition from non-IB to IB means that you'll likely have to do more writing since you have IAs and generally more work. IB means work. And considering you're getting 98% above in your current courses, you should expect to get 6s and 7s in your IB courses. 80% in IB and above roughly translates to 98% and above for current courses. The opportunity to score a really high percentage is diminished by IB.

3.) HL economics, from what I've heard, isn't a super easy IB course. There are seldom IB courses that are super easy. Economics requires understanding of concepts and knowing how to structure responses and perform calculations. You need to put in work for the subject. 

4.) As a student of HL physics myself who has been ahead in physics for a long time, I can tell you that it is possible to get a 6 in physics easily by a thorough understanding of the concepts involved and having basic mathematical ability. 

But it has a reputation of being hard. In my opinion, this reputation comes from people who have never done physics in a mathematical way before being pushed into the deep end to solve actual physics problems which involve trigonometry, vectors, algebra, etc. 

Compared to other systems in the world, such as IIT aspirants who study for the Joint Entrance Examination for the Indian Institutes of Technology, IB physics seems really easy. It's one of those things that is very relative. If you've done physics before, you may find it quite manageable. If you haven't, you'll find it pretty hard doing real physics, since the physics you would have done before is qualitative bullsh*t. 

To answer your question, IB physics isn't "really that difficult", like IB maths HL is for most people; it just requires time with concepts and problem solving. Give it a go and see how you do; you can always drop to SL if it is too much.