Your IA is an opportunity to score up to 20% of the IB Maths course marks before you even step foot in an exam hall! A strong IA is a game changer for your chances of
Contents:
1. What is the IA?
2. Criteria for a good IA.
3. Essential Resources
What is the IA?
The IA is an essay you write which investigates something you are interested in using mathematics. The mathematical process that you use should be IB level mathematics. You should choose a topic which interests you.
Criteria
How to hit the mark-scheme?
1. Communication
Communication is all about the 3 C’s. Your IA should be clear, concise and coherent.
You are trying to communicate your mathematical exploration to somebody else in your class, so make it understandable and easy to follow.
2. Mathematical Presentation
You maths should be presented step-by-step. This should be professionally formatted using equation editing software (we recommend Microsoft Word equation editor).
3. Personal Engagement
Your IA should be convincingly important and personal to you as an individual. You can demonstrate this with your choice of topic, the interest you are investigating and your creative original approach to the exploration.
4. Reflection
Throughout the IA, you should regularly explicitly reflect on your progress. You should comment on when your plan changed or when your original ideas didn’t work out. If you found a shortcut, great! Reflect on what you discovered. This shows that you a critical.
5. Use of Mathematics
Your IA should use IB level mathematics. You need to demonstrate a high level of understanding of mathematics, which is equal to the level of difficulty of the IB course. The mathematics should be well chosen to match the objectives of the IA.
Resources / Tips
Marking Criteria
The mark-scheme is your best friend. It should guide everything you do.
Citation Support
This handy website helps generator your citations/references for your IA.
Remember that any information, research, data or text (including AI!) you have used from other website must be fully referenced.
Desmos: Key Skills
This quick guide to Desmos will help you get started with this popular IA tool.
IA Inspiration
This awesome list will help you come up with ideas for your IA. They have hundreds of examples to inspire you.
Word Equation Editor
This video will explain how to use the Microsoft word equation editor.
Formatting your equations professional is vital, otherwise you will loose easy marks.
IB Exploration Ideas
This excellent library of inspiration will help you come up with ideas for your own exploration.
Mr Flynn IB IA Videos
Mr Flynn IB has put together a set of really informative videos to help you get started with your IA.
Adding a Table of Contents on Word
These simple tips make your IA professional!
In this video, you will see how to format your IA professionally.
IA Criteria Checklist
Click here to start your own copy of the IA criteria checklist.
Our super simple checklist helps you organise and remember all the key ideas that must be in your IA to help you cover the entire IB IA mark-scheme.
Desmos Support
Addvance hosted a Desmos workshop to help you understand how to make the most of Desmos.
Desmos is an extremely powerful online graphic calculator which is often used in IAs.
Addvance Maths 