IB Mathematics Internal Assessment
Your teacher marks your exploration, your school reports that mark, and then someone you will never meet may read a sample of the work. Most students have only a hazy idea of what happens in between. Here is the process in plain terms, why a final mark can move, and what you can do about it in the draft you are writing now.
The IA is marked by your own teacher against the published criteria. It is then checked by the IB through external moderation. A moderator reads a sample of work from your school, applies the criteria independently and compares their judgement with your teacher's. The point is not to catch teachers out. It is to make a mark from one school mean the same as a mark from another, across thousands of students.
The exact details, such as how the sample is chosen and how large it is, are set by the IB and can change. Your coordinator will know the current arrangements for your school, so ask them rather than trusting what a friend heard.
You do not need the mechanics to understand the logic. The moderator is checking whether your teacher's marking sits where the criteria say it should. If the sample suggests your school is marking consistently higher or lower than the standard, the marks for the group can be adjusted so they line up with it. That adjustment can apply to students whose work was never read. It can go up as well as down.
This is why two students with the same school mark can end up with different final marks, and why your teacher's number is best thought of as a firm estimate rather than a promise.
Your teacher's mark is the starting point. What you finally receive depends on how your school's marking compares with the standard once the sample has been read. You cannot see that comparison, and you cannot control it.
The more clearly your work shows what it achieves, the less room there is for two careful readers to disagree. That is entirely in your hands, and it is the real lesson of moderation.
These are the patterns I see most often when I read explorations against the criteria. None of them is about the student being unlucky.
Write for a reader who has never met you, has your document and the criteria, and has limited time. Then check four things.
Those three questions turn a vague worry into a revision list. Teachers are usually glad to be asked, and the answers are far more useful than a provisional number.
A last practical point. Once a mark has been given, your options are set by your school and the IB, and they are narrower than students expect. The window in which you have real influence is the drafting stage, so use it.
Want to know how a stranger would read your draft?
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: how to use teacher feedback on your Maths IA draft
These pages are free and stay free, but they are general and your IA is not. Send me your research question, or whatever exists so far, and I will tell you in writing whether the topic has a ceiling on it, where the marks are going, and what to change first. That costs nothing and it comes back within 24 hours.
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.
Get a free verdict Full written review, $99
I never write any part of it. Not a sentence, not a calculation, not your data. Under 18: a parent buys this and the thread is with them. I do not work with students at my own school.