Hack IB

The Extended Essay (EE) makes up a key part of the inner core. It contributes to your 3 bonus points that can make or break your results to get into your dream university. More importantly, the Extended Essay is a must-pass requirement to get your IB diploma.

The EE might seem intimidating to students because of its mammoth 4000 word count and self-driven nature. For many students, this will be the first time they have had to undertake original, self-driven research. The skill of coming up with your own topic, devising questions, and methodologies to answer these questions can be challenging if you are doing it for the first time. However, it will set you up incredibly well for the future of university academic writing if you learn to do this effectively starting now.

I will go through how you can decide first on what subject you should do your EE in, and from there, how to find a unique and personalised topic that will enable you to score an A in EE.

What subject should I choose?

There are three key things you should consider in choosing your EE subject. They should be:

• One of your HL subjects
• A subject that you would like to do in University/Your Career
• A subject that interests you

Generally, you should choose to write an EE in one of your Higher Level subjects. Studying in HL, you should have a greater understanding of the subject material than SL and potentially have learned more at this point that you are starting to plan out your EE. In theory, you should also be studying them at HL because you have shown a strong interest in the subject and/or are hoping to pursue further studies in those areas at university.

Notice how I didn’t mention the difficulty of the subjects in my consideration. A lot of people have the misconception that some subjects like English will be an easier EE to write than say, Chemistry. However, this is simply not the case. No one can tell you what you enjoy. Since the EE is so self-driven, you must have a natural intuition and excitement to always improve and ideate for your EE. If you hate the subject, no matter how ‘easy’ it is, it will be the hardest thing you’ve done in your life. Passion is the key in choosing your subject.

What topic should I choose?

Depending on the subject, the requirements are slightly different.

Group 1: Language EEs

Your Group 1 Language EE should be written in that language. For example, a Spanish A EE needs to be written in Spanish and English Language and Literature EE in English and so on. In general, the EE revolves around choosing a text or two texts and either doing a analysis on a certain theme or a comparison of the two texts around a theme.

To choose a suitable topic, make sure that:

• Your literary texts are unique and appropriate in difficulty
• You can’t google the answer to your topic or find it in a litchart
• It is somewhat well-known, either locally or internationally.
• It is something you have not studied in class

The choice of topic in a language EE mostly depends on selection of a good literary text. Depending on the course, whether it is Literature or Language and Literature, this can include a collection of poems, a novel, a group of lyrical works, etc. However, make sure you choose something that is unique and that the examiner is unlikely to have seen more than a few times. There is no definite requirement that you can’t do a famous novel like 1984 or Animal Farm, but because they are so well known and overdone, it is hard for you to come up with original insights and analysis that others on the internet haven’t already done. In your EE, you won’t be able to demonstrate your critical thinking and analysis if your work seems to be a carbon copy of the litcharts. This will translate to an underwhelming result.

At the same time, don’t choose something that is so obscure you can’t find anything online about it. Although the EE should be about your analysis, part of this includes doing research into the context, perspectives and intentions of the author and the novel. If there is nothing online about the author or novel, it is hard for you to evaluate this aspect of your analysis. Additionally, a good way to demonstrate critical thinking is to compare your analysis with literary criticisms by ‘actual’ critics on the internet on your novel. This provides you an opportunity to rebut or perhaps identify points of agreement with those critics. Again, if your novel is not sufficiently well-known, you will find this part more difficult.

Finally, you should never choose something you have done in class in the IB. Your choice of literary and non-literary works should come from, ideally, your personal reading. A good way to check if you will succeed in your language EE is to see if you have been reading outside of class. If you have, choosing a suitable work outside of the IB curriculum will be easy for you. You will have a strong personal connection with your work that enables you to clearly show your personal engagement. However, if you feel you need to research for hours just to find a book to start reading and write a whole 4000 word essay about, it is unlikely that a language EE is the right fit for you.

Group 2: Language Acquisition

This group is one of the rarer groups for the EE. It is really only recommended if you are studying a Language B subject at the HL level. If you wish to do one in Group 2, you must also write your EE in the language of your chosen subject. So Spanish for Spanish B, English for English B and so on. This might be a challenge as writing 4000 words in a language that isn’t your mother tongue can mean you need to work extra hard on not just your ideas, but expressing them correctly. Additionally, you will likely uses sources written exclusively in that language. However, if you can do it successfully, it can be easier to score an A in a Group 2 EE given the emphasis is weighed more heavily on your ability to communicate as well as your ideas.

The EE generally will let you select a topic that explores the use of language in societal or cultural contexts. There is an option to analyse a literary work as you would in a Group 1 EE as well.

It seems that analysing the use of language in a cultural or social context is a more common approach amongst Group 2 students. It makes for an easier point for entry for a non-native speaker of the language, and can be more interesting of a topic as well. It is also easier to demonstrate your connection with the topic. When doing this, make sure you are specific about the type of culture or social context you will be investigating and it is a good idea beforehand to explore the variety of sources you will have access to. You don’t want to pick a topic and then release it is so obscure, no one has written anything about it.

For literary works, similar guidelines to the Group 1 EEs apply. However, the difficulty of the text expected will be slightly lower and the level of analysis will also be slightly lower.

Group 3: Individuals and Societies

This spans a wide range of subjects from Economics to History to Psychology. The advice really differs between subjects but in general, a topic chosen should be:

• A recent issue, or topic,
• with no definitive answer
• able to be answered with a wide variety of high quality sources
• somewhat related to, or is an extension of the syllabus

By far the biggest challenge when it comes to choosing a topic for a Group 3 subject is the ability to actually create an approachable topic that is at an appropriate level of difficulty for students.

Your starting point for a topic should be the syllabus. Your topic should be within or slightly above the syllabus. If your topic covers an area of say, Economics, that is never introduced in the syllabus, it is likely it will be too complex for you.

It is a good idea to choose a topic that has personal relevance to you. This may be harder for some subjects that others.

For obvious reasons, it is likely that you will mainly use secondary sources or a mixture of primary and secondary sources rather than conducting your own experiments exclusively. From the outset, you should have a clear idea of how you might go about answering the topic, as the methodologies you use to conduct research in the humanities is slightly different to those we use in the sciences.

As with all the other subjects, if your topic has an obviously google-able answer, or can be answered with a bit of common sense, then it is likely an unsuitable topic, unless you are able to explain why the common sense answer is not the right one.

Group 4: Sciences

This is one of the more popular options for EE topics. For this type of EE, there are generally the following attributes to a good topic:

• Slightly beyond the syllabus
• Significant research into the topic already
• Have clear dependent and independent variables much like your IAs

Students can take two approaches to a Science EE. In the chosen subject, you can either complete experiments or do a data-based EE with completely secondary research.

For experimental EEs, ensure that while your topic is beyond the syllabus, there is well-established methodologies for your topic so you can conduct experiments and collect useful data. Having a valid method is the biggest hurdle for this EE. Often, you may be limited by the access to equipment and chemicals or bacteria available to you.

For data based EEs, ensure that there is multiple sources of detailed secondary data published in academic journals. Your goal is not just to find the data and then answer the question, you should be able to comment on the validity and flaws of the methodology used to collect that data and show your critical thinking that way. In many ways, this can be a harder way to perform an EE. Although you may not have to spend so much time in the lab to experiment, you are also missing out on the personal experiences with the methodology and you would have to think very carefully about the methods used by other people. Sometimes, this is the only way to do an EE, for example in astrophysics.

Difficulty of the topic should be commensurate with your course of study. It should not be something you have studied. You may start by using knowledge of existing topics, but your research should be on new content.

Group 5: Mathematics

TBA