It is essential to clearly know where your first IA draft is in the criteria. Depending on the teacher, you may get a numerical grade out of 20 on your first math IA draft. Otherwise, you can predict your own score based on the teacher’s comments. If you received a low score on the first draft, do not panic right away (that comes later, on the day before the deadline). Plenty of students were able to successfully improve their grades between their submissions of first draft and final draft. To do so, it is highly important that you do not react emotionally– for instance, nagging and begging for scores or getting your parents involved (the nuclear option to be used as a last resort; by last resort I mean NEVER) which are strongly advised against. Then, what steps should we take to maximize your IA scores?
Calmly assess your situation from a realistic standpoint
Before taking action, you should assess your situation from an objective perspective. You should ask yourself,
“What is the specific issue that led to the low score?”
“Which particular part of specific criteria is my IA lacking?”
“How can I improve?”
Your teacher may have provided a certain improvement plan in the feedback.
For example,
“You got a 10/20, but if you fix A, B, and C, you will easily increase your grade to 16/20.”
In such a case, you should follow through with your teacher’s suggestions. If you received insufficient feedback from your teacher, you should be more proactive and set up meetings with your teacher to ask for further oral guidance.
Additionally, it is crucial to set reasonable expectations; have you always been a 7 student, but anomalously slipped with your IA? Or, have you always been a 5 student and received a mid-low score? Although 5 students are not limited to a score in the mid-low range, they should mentally prepare themselves for the uphill battle coming their way. If you want an exceptional score in your IA, put in the exceptional effort.
Take actions
There are two pathways for you in this step: retain your IA topic or restart your IA with a new topic.
If you decide that you will continue with your original topic, which would, in most circumstances, be the safer option, you should first resolve the issues identified in Step 1. For instance, if you are lacking in Criterion E: Use of Mathematics, you should research and add more rigorous mathematics related to your topic to your IA; if you are lacking in Criterion C: Personal Engagement, you should recheck your personal engagement paragraph and add more of your own interpretation and reflection to your IA to display your ownership and interest. Then, you should read at least 5 exemplar IAs that were written on a similar topic and try to benchmark them.
What are the key takeaways from each IA? What did the writers of these IAs do better than others?
How can I emulate the strengths of each IA to launch a strong exploration of my own choosing?
If you cannot find any past IAs that you can use as a reference for your own topic, you should appeal to your teacher that you are truly challenging yourself and actively ask for more help.
Beforehand, you should prepare a specific improvement plan based on step 1, and during the meeting, you should ask questions such as “If I take steps A, B, and C, can I meet my expectation (in terms of IA score)?” It is essential to constantly check if your improvements are in the correct direction with your teacher or a tutor.
However, if you decide that or if your teacher suggests that you should start over your IA with a new topic because the current research question was completely impracticable, you may require professional help outside of school since there would be insufficient time to write a high-achieving IA with a new topic until the submission of the final draft. When you get external help, you should provide to the tutor all of the feedback you got from your teacher (even the comments that you are too embarrassed to share). Other cases where you may need a professional tutor include: insufficient written feedback, overwhelming amount of feedback, and issues with student-teacher relationship.