Difference between IB and A-level?

tyrus · 06-21-2007, 01:42 PM

Difference between IB and A-level?
Are they the same thing?

shail619 · 06-21-2007, 01:50 PM

No they aren't..IB is considered a tougher course than A levels..due to which u are liable to get more credits for IB than that for A levels.. infact, colleges have special quotas for IB students...

mzc86 · 06-21-2007, 02:45 PM

IB= International Baccalaureate. It's a two-year college prep program widely used at international school, as it is accepted in many countries throughout the world. At the end of you senior year, you take the IB exams...As far as I can recall, you need to take at least 3 subjects at the higher level in order to obtain a full diploma. The exams are graded in Switzerland on a scale from 1-7 and you need at least a 3 to pass. The grade doesn't only depend on the exam, though.There's also an internal assessment for each subject (carried out by the teacher), a required extended essay on a topic of your choice, and a paper on Theory of Knowledge.

A-levels= exams taken by British students for university entry. Sorry, can't give you any more details.

Tsubie-chan · 06-21-2007, 03:56 PM

Heh, I'd say any exam at this level is tougher than A levels except for the SAT Subject tests.

hoeman · 06-22-2007, 03:24 AM

you're welcomed to take the a-levels in singapore since it is SO EASY.

come on.

hoeman · 06-22-2007, 03:28 AM

better yet, try the prelims from rj, hc, nj, vj, etc. they're easy and a great morale booster.

inshallah · 06-22-2007, 11:41 AM

I beg to differ. I'm not saying A-levels are insanely hard but they are tough.

cowgirlatheart · 06-22-2007, 11:53 AM

mzc86 - Just to clarify, the exams are actually marked all over the world. I know that my extended essay got sent to Wales, my TOK paper to Australia, and my chemistry HL teacher was marking exams from Germany all through June.

One important difference between IB and A-levels is that the IB curriculum is more well-rounded. If I remember correctly, you choose your A-level courses according to what you want to do in uni and there aren't any required subjects. For IB you need 6 subjects (2 languages, social science, science, maths, and one option), so it forces you to take a bit of everything. You can use the SL/HL distinction to weigh more heavily towards one kind of subject (humanities vs. sciences), but that's about it.

albert87 · 06-22-2007, 12:51 PM

Quote:

better yet, try the prelims from rj, hc, nj, vj, etc. they're easy and a great morale booster.

lol i totally agree with hoeman.

by the way, Singapore students take different A-level papers from other candidates around the world. This is because the Singapore Examinations and Assessment Board (SEAB) has a hand in setting the local A-level papers. Moreover, the A-Level examinations are taken in only one sitting in Singapore, and there are no AS level papers(unless you attend an international school). Personally, I found the amount of material I had to revise for A-levels overwhelming.

spencer11111 · 06-22-2007, 02:35 PM

Come on... be honest here... if SEAB is really so good, they could have kicked UCLES away... why still need to keep UCLES???

Because they need the Cambridge brand name. SEAB is nothing.

spencer11111 · 06-22-2007, 02:39 PM

RJ HC NJ VJ TJ.... haha ... I did them for my revision!

But I generally find the papers very poorly set. They are not really testing the "key skills" asked for the exam syllabus but other stupid stuff. NJ papers are all rubbish, hence I do them first even before I start my revision... basically just waste it to help me recall what topic I need to study.

TJ paper also tend not to be very well set.
HC is not bad.
VJ and RJ are my favorites. VJ tend to be better. RJ chemistry is rubbish, testing stupid concepts that would not appear in A-lvl...

spencer11111 · 06-22-2007, 02:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tsubie-chan

Heh, I'd say any exam at this level is tougher than A levels except for the SAT Subject tests.

I don't know why you have them easy....... A-levels are hard,,,

spencer11111 · 06-22-2007, 02:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hoeman

you're welcomed to take the a-levels in singapore since it is SO EASY.

come on.

Is the Singapore A-level really so much harder than the UK GCE A-level? Have you done both?

albert87 · 06-22-2007, 10:57 PM

spencer, the prelim papers(or common test papers) set by RJ, HC, VJ, NJ are not poorly set. I feel that they are much more challenging than the A-levels because they test higher order thinking/problem solving skills, not mere regurgitation of formulae and facts which is sometimes the case in the A-level exam.

Also the Preliminary examinations prepare the students very well for A-levels. In my school, I have friends who failed their F.Math during prelim (some questions are ridiculously undoable under exam conditions) and still managed to score A in the A-levels.

Moreover, SEAB just recently revamped the A-level syllabus. The content has supposedly been reduced but I think they are making the papers harder at the same time. There is no way MOE Singapore is making things easier for singaporean students.

spencer11111 · 06-23-2007, 04:41 AM

albert87: firstly for FMaths are you talking about NJC FMaths? NJ Maths papers are really dumb. Like for one yr NJC FM paper, they used the word "deduce" for a polar question, but actually, we were supposed to calculate the answer out in full. Basically, the wording is misleading. I don't think interpreting misleading questions is part of the "skill" specified in the syllabus.

Among the top 5 JC: RJC HCI VJC NJC TJC
NJC Maths is rubbish. RJC and TJC chem is rubbish.
RJC Maths is very well set. VJC, TJC and RJC tend to be good.
HCJC, TJC, RJC and VJC Phy are well set, esp. HCJC. NJC phy is rubbish, they always try to confuse the candidates with different units, which really is not the focus of the exam.

Sometimes for RJC Chem, they test things that are out of the syllabus, or things that are not the techniques asked for in the curriculum.

A-level tends to be more disciplined in setting the questions, and the questions really are of high quality. For an exam, quality and difficulty are two completely different things. A quality exam would be able to achieve what an exam is for --- to differentiate candidates of different abilities fairly (little element of luck). Considerable skill is needed to make sure that the questions increase in difficulty down the paper (ie, qn 2 is harder than qn 1, and qn 3 is harder than qn 2) in a gradual manner, estimate how much time do the (how many % of) candidates need to complete the (how many % of the ) qn, and how many percent of the candidates would be able to do a particular qn to different extents. I really don't think when the JCs set the papers they took all these complex considerations into account.

Also, the perlim papers of the top-5 JCs tend to be copy-cats of the ones set by Cambridge. Cambridge tend to be more original in the questions asked, in a way that test the real understanding of the material, while of an appropriate level of difficulty. The top-5 JC would then take these novel qn style and sex it up to make them difficult, while not inventing a new type of qn themselves.

It is hilarious that JC students think that Singaporeans can set tougher questions than the British. Cambridge is not crap, of course they can set questions of sky-high standard, but as an exam board it has to set the papers in a very considerable and controlled manner.