IB Mathematics Internal Assessment
You get one go at this, so it matters what you do with the comments when they come back. Some students ignore half of them, some obey every word and lose their own voice, and some read a single sentence of praise and stop. Here is a way to turn feedback into a better exploration that is still yours.
In general, a teacher may read a draft and give advice on how to improve it. They may not rewrite it, correct it line by line, or tell you what to put on the page. The exact rules, including how many drafts they may look at, are set by the IB and applied by your school, so check them with your teacher and in the current official guide before you hand anything over.
This is useful to know because it explains why feedback often sounds vague. "Develop this further" or "justify your choice" is not laziness. It is a teacher staying inside the rules. Your job is to turn a general nudge into specific work, and that work has to be done by you.
Read the comments once for the feelings. You will be pleased, annoyed or deflated, and that is normal. Then put it away for a day. Reading again the next day, you will see that a comment which stung was fair, or that one which seemed trivial points at something large.
Then read with a pen, and sort each comment into one of three piles.
Most students find the pile sizes tell them something. A mountain of communication comments is cheap to fix. A mountain of mathematics comments means the draft needs real work, and that is better to learn in October than in the week of the deadline.
A comment is only useful once it becomes a task. Rewrite each one as a question about your own work.
You add one sentence somewhere saying the model was chosen because it fits well. The comment has been ticked off, but nothing has improved.
You ask: what other models could I have used, what does each assume, and what would make me prefer one? Then you actually try a second option, compare the two honestly, and report which you trust more and why. The justification now rests on work, not on a sentence.
Try this on every comment. "Check this result" becomes "how could I test this independently?" "Needs more reflection" becomes "where did I make a decision or get a surprise that I have not yet commented on?" If you cannot turn a comment into a question, that is the one to ask your teacher about.
You will rarely have time for everything, so order the work. A sensible order is:
One exception: a comment about length or structure may be worth doing first, because it decides what you keep.
Sometimes you will think your teacher has misread you. That does happen, and it usually means one of two things. Either you are right and the page does not make it clear, or you are wrong and have not seen why. Both are useful.
If the page did not make it clear, a reader who knows you and your topic missed your point, so a stranger certainly will. Fix the writing. If you think the comment is simply mistaken, go back and ask a specific question rather than quietly ignoring it. "I thought this step followed because of X. Where does it break down for you?" is a far better conversation than "I disagree".
Teachers are busy, and a short, precise question gets a better answer than "is this better now?". Good questions point at one thing.
Notice that none of these asks the teacher to do the work or approve the result. They ask for a way of seeing, which is exactly what a teacher is allowed to give.
On day one, read and sort the comments into three piles. On day two, rewrite each as a question and list the tasks in order. Spend the middle days on the mathematics and the thinking. Leave the last day for communication and a full read of the whole thing, aloud if you can bear it. At the end, write yourself a short note saying what changed and why. That note is not for submission, but it shows you which of your decisions you can now defend, and that is where good reflection comes from.
Comments back and not sure what they add up to?
Send me your draft and your teacher's comments. I read real submitted explorations every year, and I will help you see which comments carry the most marks, what to do first, and where there is still time to move the grade.
Get the IA sorted with meMore like this: all Maths IA guides. Related: reflection in the Maths IA
A new IA guide goes up most nights. If you would rather not keep checking, leave an email and I will send the one that matters that week. No selling, and leave whenever you like.
If you are under 18, use a parent's email. I do not correspond privately with students.
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.
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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.