IB Mathematics Internal Assessment
Students on Analysis and approaches and students on Applications and interpretation often assume they are held to different standards in the exploration. They are not. The real difference is smaller, and more useful. Here is what stays the same, what changes, and how to use the difference when you choose a topic.
Both courses use the same five criteria, A to E. A moderator reading an AA exploration and an AI exploration asks the same questions of each: is it organised, is it communicated clearly, does it show engagement from you, does it reflect honestly, and is the mathematics well used for the level. Nobody has a separate, easier or harder mark scheme because of the course name on the front.
What does change is the level, not the course. Criterion E, the use of mathematics, is judged differently at SL and at HL. A piece that is comfortably strong for SL can look thin at HL, whichever course it came from. So the first question is "SL or HL?", and only the second is "AA or AI?".
The criteria do not know which course you are on. An AI exploration gets no credit for being from AI, and no penalty either. If the mathematics is routine for your level, it will be read as routine.
The courses emphasise different things, so different ideas feel natural. Your job is to pick a topic where the mathematics has real work to do for your level, using the tools your course has given you.
Analysis and approaches leans towards algebraic and analytical thinking: functions, calculus, proof, sequences, structure. Applications and interpretation leans towards modelling real situations, working with data, technology and statistical reasoning. Neither list is a rule, and plenty of strong explorations cross over. But the lean is real, and it affects how much effort a topic costs you.
Both can end up in the same place. An AA student studying a real optimisation problem is modelling. An AI student studying how a statistical test behaves is doing analysis. The course is where you start from, not a fence around you.
Because AA has room for structure and proof, some students write up something they met in a textbook or video, in their own notation. It reads as a summary of known results. The exploration needs a question you are actually investigating, with choices that are yours.
AI students have strong technology tools, and that is a strength. The trap is letting a calculator or spreadsheet produce a regression, a test result or a fitted curve, then reporting it without showing you understand what it did or whether it was appropriate. Technology is welcome. Outsourcing the thinking is not.
A quick check: could someone who had not studied your course have produced your key result by following a recipe? If yes, the mathematics is probably routine, and routine is exactly what the level judgement in criterion E is looking for.
This is the part students miss. At HL the expectation for the mathematics is more demanding, and a single routine technique applied once will not carry the exploration, however well it is written. At SL, understanding is rewarded far more than reach. Mathematics well beyond your course that you cannot explain scores worse than course-level mathematics handled with confidence.
So an AI HL student cannot rely on "it is applied, so it is fine". The modelling needs depth: more than one idea, a justified choice between approaches, and an honest test of the result. An AA SL student cannot assume an abstract topic is automatically impressive. It has to be understood and used, not displayed.
Suppose two students are curious about how quickly a hot drink cools. The AA student might focus on the cooling law itself: the differential relationship, the exact solution against an approximate one, and when the approximation fails. The AI student might collect temperature readings over time, fit and compare models, and judge how well each predicts the next readings. Both are legitimate. Either could score well or badly, depending on how deep the mathematics goes for their level and how honestly they handle it.
If you are unsure which way you lean, that is normal. Sketch one idea of each kind, spend an evening on each, and see which gives you questions you actually want to answer.
Not sure your idea fits your course and level?
Send me the question and what you have so far. I read real submitted explorations against the criteria every year, and I will tell you honestly where the marks are likely to go while there is still time to change it.
Get the IA sorted with meMore like this: all Maths IA guides. Related: what "commensurate with the level of the course" really means for Maths AA HL
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Written by a serving IB Diploma and Career-related Programme Coordinator and Head of Mathematics, who reads internal assessments across every subject group every year. If you then want the whole draft reviewed properly against all five criteria, that is the paid one, and it is refunded if it does not name at least three specific things to fix.
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