IB Chemistry HL Internal Assessment Example

The investigation has a focused and quantitative research question that clearly identifies the variables, substances, and calorimetry context.

The student shows sound awareness of the practical constraints of school-lab calorimetry and justifies why this method is appropriate for the topic.

The procedure is organized well enough that another student could follow the broad experimental approach.

Some scientific context is weakened by chemical inaccuracies, including an unbalanced combustion equation and oversimplified bond-energy reasoning.

The method is not explained with enough precision to be fully reproducible without ambiguity.

Key decisions, such as the fixed burning time and fuel-mass handling, are not justified strongly enough for a top-band design.

The student uses the correct core equations and the calculation sequence is generally logical and easy to follow.

The raw temperature table and derived results make the overall pattern understandable.

The student shows some awareness of uncertainty by identifying instrument uncertainties and calculating uncertainty for heat transfer.

Important processing steps are missing, especially the raw burner masses needed to verify the molar enthalpy calculations.

Uncertainty is not carried through to the final dependent-variable values, so the analysis is incomplete.

The presentation is not consistently precise, and the claimed regression is not actually shown with an equation, gradient, or fit statistics.