Last week, our senior International Baccalaureate (IB) students celebrated the completion of their Extended Essay with parents, teachers and fellow classmates. Months of self-directed research and 4000 words later, the completion of this significant assignment marked an important moment in the journey towards graduation.

 

In the IB, Extended Essays are meant to equip students with skills and preparations for conducting undergraduate research. It is also a unique opportunity for students to explore a topic of personal interest to them, which also relates to one or two of their core IB subjects. Throughout this assignment, students learn to formulate research questions, develop an argument and communicate ideas in accordance to high academic standards.

 

The Extended Essay Extravaganza took place at the library. Greeted with snacks and live music, our seniors were able to answer questions about their essays to visitors, talk about their challenges and insights, and share an overall special moment with each other.

 

At the event, we spoke with a few students about their research question and reflections on their experience:

 

“My topic was Benazir Bhutto - I researched to what extent she refined the democratic institutions in Pakistan. I’ve always had a fascination with her, so I wanted to take the opportunity to really understand her because she’s a really polarizing figure in Pakistan. I wanted to come up with my own criteria to judge whether she was a good democratic leader.” - Mashaal, Extended Essay in History.

 

“For an essay that would be 4000 words, I wanted to write it on something I found interesting. I wrote mine on the impact on the book “And Then There Were None” by Agatha Christie and the impact that she had on the genre of crime. If I did it again, I would have started the writing process way earlier, so that I have more time to discuss more angles, and start new conversations within the essay. ” - Arianna, Extended Essay in English

Literature

 

“I’m a guitarist, and I was interested in seeing how the sound type develops along the place of the pick up. It’s just a very interesting topic for me and lots of fun; I got to engineer with my guitar; take it apart and reassemble it. I also got to work with a coding system and data, which was great to do. ” - Extended Essay Physics

 

“I researched how early AIDS diagnostics in Singapore affects the economy. I had to see it from a critical viewpoint because this topic is something that I’m connected to personally. My information mainly came from statistics, case studies and biological research. ” - Extended Essay in Biology & Economics