IB Chemistry SL Internal Assessment Example

The student chose a focused and scientifically meaningful investigation linking temperature, rate, and activation energy.

The student included relevant theory such as the Arrhenius relationship and a clear rationale for using oxygen volume as a proxy for reaction progress.

The student identified several important controlled variables and showed awareness of practical conditions that affect reliability.

The student's method is detailed enough that much of the investigation could be followed and repeated.

The scientific context is not fully secure because key fixed conditions beyond volume are not clearly established.

The role of the yeast catalyst is not explained in enough detail for the system being studied.

The method does not fully justify how the temperature of the reacting mixture is maintained or measured during transfer.

Some procedural details needed for fully reliable reproduction, such as equilibration time and exact rate extraction, are missing.

The student presents their data in a way that is mostly understandable, with labelled tables and graphs that show the main trend clearly.

The student includes error bars and attempts to propagate uncertainty rather than ignoring it.

The student carries out several relevant processing steps, including averaging repeats and using a linearised relationship to estimate activation energy.

The student's processed data is organised in a way that helps the reader follow the flow from raw measurements to a final result.

Some headings and labels are imprecise, making it harder to distinguish raw measurements from calculated values.

The student's rate calculation method is not fully valid for kinetic analysis because it uses an endpoint-based average rather than an initial gradient.

The uncertainty treatment contains mathematical weaknesses, especially in the logarithmic transformation and the handling of the repeated measurements.

The final activation-energy result would be more convincing if the student reported it with a clear uncertainty range.