Do you need tutors for your IA?

To answer your question, you definitely could! 
It’s that time of the year where you are possibly stressing about your IA’s. Do you have it all under control? Are you ahead of your deadlines? Is everything going per plan or are you struggling to write down everything? If you are hesitant with your answers, you might want to consider getting a tutor to help you with your IA’s. If you have assistance with your IA(s) with the help of our tutors, you might be able to manage time better and have your eyes set on studying for the exams and completing the internal assessments simultaneously. 

Problem 1: You’re drawing a blank and you don’t know what to focus your research on. 

This is one of the most common problems that almost every student faces at the beginning of Year 1 or even Year 2. Obviously you want your IA to be extraordinary. To do that, you will need to talk to someone who knows the entire process in and out: the guidelines, rubrics, structure of the IA, scope for exploration and practically everything. 

You may not be able to decide on an interesting topic to pursue for your IA. Our teachers can help you with that too. They will ask you questions to nudge you in the right direction that will make you realize where your interest lies. Be sure to pick a topic that you’re curious towards because you’d be more invested in the research that way.

However, you also cannot expect your teacher/tutor to have everything wrapped around their finger. The IA Tutors might need to get a few things clarified or they might have to research more about a topic to help get you an idea. Nevertheless, they do it. Also keep in mind that they only instill the thinking process for you to get the research question – they cannot formulate it themselves for you. 

Problem 2: Your experiment is failing and not going the way you wanted it to. 

It is not the best situation when your experiment fails. Trust me, it is not easy to figure out which tiny part of the experiment is causing it to fail. It is very unfortunate to see your analysis results completely opposite to what you expected.

Now, you did the experiment once and the results are inaccurate or wrong. The next step you do is to figure out where the problem is. Looking at the same experiment multiple times – you’ll just want to see the things that you want and eventually you tend to miss out on problems or mistakes. Therefore, having a new set of experienced eyes, a tutor, is always better and our IA tutors will help you through this. They question every part of your experiment to thoroughly understand why everything is done in a specific manner. 

I wish I had one when the EE and IA experiment was failing. It took me a great deal of stress to figure out why I got the results I did. Both were physics experiments so my problems were mostly associated with the model itself. Sometimes, it was the calculation part too. Again, I hope I had a tutor to take a look at it all – I would’ve finished much earlier.

Problem 3: Structuring your IA and proofreading. 

You’re done with your experiment, You’re done with obtaining your results. Now what? You have to simply write the 12 page document. Writing this document has a set of its own problems. Communication. Language. Flow. Word limit. This is only the surface. 

For this, you will need someone who’s seen at least 20-30 IA’s. Our IA tutors know it in and out and all around it. They will know what the IB expects from you in terms of quality. Now, they can’t write it for you but they can certainly help you as much as they can by going through all of the 10 drafts that you may happen to write. Come on, no one can finalize their entire IA in the first draft. Again, you need a new set of eyes reading the document perhaps to find out the possible grammatical errors or factual information. The feedback you get during your draft phase is invaluable because everything little matters to put together your document.

At the end of the day, it is your IA. We cannot force you to rewrite it or change it. We can only give you suggestions and essentially it is up to you to move forward with it or otherwise. It might hit you, you know, my friends and family are enough to review it. But do they really know what an IA is about and how it is to be communicated? Possibly not. Having a tutor help you from the beginning will save you time and double work.

Here’s to sum up of how our IA tutors can be of use to you:

• Assist in developing a well-thought-out research question and a practical strategy to address it. 
• Describe the quick and simple process for citing sources. 
• Assist students in identifying IA issues so they may come up with their own remedies. 
• Review the sections of the curriculum that relate to your child’s subject. This frequently serves as the perfect reminder to motivate them to proceed. 
• Point out areas of concern and assist pupils in coming up with their own answers. 
• Encourage students to reflect, analyze, and critique at the level required for the IB Diploma. This will facilitate meeting the criteria for a top-scoring IA. 
• Encourage pupils to pursue academic learning, research, and other activities with confidence.

Here are some tips to help you with your IA:

• Our IB IA instructors advise beginning your IA before the teacher asks you to do so. It takes time to collect your data and put together your portfolio. IAs that are started and completed solely in the senior year can look hurried. 

• Wherever and wherever you can, personalize your IA. Participate in the investigation itself. Write, present, and create with passion and clarity. No matter what, convey to the examiner that the topic of your IA is something you are passionate about. 

• At the conclusion of the IA quest, don’t be scared to refute your own theory or hypothesis. The best IAs unearth new data that refutes previous conclusions. 

• The IA should be viewed as an open-ended rather than a closed inquiry, according to our IB IA teachers.

• Pick an original topic – Because everything depends on it, it’s crucial to choose an original topic. Always attempt to pick something out of the ordinary that will catch the examiner’s attention and provide solid evidence for your arguments. Don’t just reword the first research question you come across online! 

• IB IA teachers advise against using unrealistic concepts and experiments in your internal assessment. Personal evaluations, however, call for personal engagement, so make sure to pick wisely and participate; otherwise, you risk receiving a poor grade. 

• Plan your experiment. This is a crucial component of your internal evaluation. It should always be authentic and relevant to the outside world.

• Create a solid research question before you start writing your internal assessment. Your query should be original and reasonable, and it should always refer to the sources you are using. 

• To conclude Be specific and clear in your explanations. Describe everything you do and why you do it. Paint a clear picture of your material and the results you expect from the topic you select. Be succinct, direct, and clear. 

• Clearly justify – Because the examiner (internal assessment) doesn’t have a comprehensive understanding of your subject, be sure to fully explain everything.