A step-by-step writing frame for the IBDP Chemistry Internal Assessment. Each section pairs a place to write with the rubric, worked examples, and the traps that cost students marks.
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📄 Official IB subject brief (ibo.org ↗) — your teacher or IB coordinator can share the full subject guide.
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To cite a reference in your writing, click “Insert citation” on any entry while a writing box is focused — it drops an in-text citation at your cursor.
This is roughly how your exported DOCX / PDF will read. Everything is written in third person, past tense — check yours matches.
This writing frame walks you through every section of the IB Chemistry Internal Assessment. You start with a focused research question that names the independent and dependent variables with their ranges and units, then set out the background chemistry and mechanism that justify it. You write your controlled variables in full prose, build a referenced risk assessment, and list apparatus and reagents with their measurement uncertainties. The method is written for full reproducibility. Then comes data processing with absolute and percentage uncertainty, a scatter graph with error bars and maximum and minimum gradients, and a conclusion justified against literature values. It is free to start and exports to DOCX and PDF.
The IA is assessed against four equally weighted criteria — Research design, Data analysis, Conclusion and Evaluation — for 24 marks in total. Top-band Chemistry work states a focused, manipulable research question grounded in a genuine chemical reaction, identifies and justifies every variable, processes data with uncertainty carried through, and justifies its conclusion against referenced secondary data while weighing the relative impact of specific weaknesses.
In a Chemistry IA the uncertainty work is absolute and percentage uncertainty. You add absolute uncertainties when quantities are added or subtracted, and add percentage uncertainties when they are multiplied or divided, then propagate them through to the final result. Those propagated uncertainties become the error bars on your scatter graph, and the steepest and shallowest lines through them give the maximum and minimum gradients, so the trend is quoted as m ± Δm.
The full Research Design section is free to use. Sign in to save your work to your account and pick it up on any device. Every section, worked example and trap is written by experienced IB Chemistry examiners, so the guidance reflects what actually earns marks.
A good Chemistry research question is focused and manipulable, with a genuine chemical reaction at its heart — measuring a purely physical change is not a suitable Chemistry IA. Name the independent variable with its range and units, and the dependent variable with how it is measured, so a single sentence tells the examiner exactly what you investigated. Use the form "How does … affect …?" rather than vague verbs like "investigate".
Chemistry uses absolute and percentage uncertainty rather than statistical tests. Take each instrument's uncertainty from your equipment list (remember a burette is read twice, so its uncertainty doubles), convert to percentage uncertainty as (absolute ÷ measured value) × 100, then propagate: add absolute uncertainties when adding or subtracting, and add percentage uncertainties when multiplying or dividing. Round the final uncertainty to one significant figure and quote the result to the same decimal place. These uncertainties become your error bars and feed the maximum and minimum gradients.
It is recommended to be 6–12 pages; quality and clarity matter more than length. A concise report that records and processes data precisely, presents a scatter graph with error bars and a gradient quoted with its uncertainty, and justifies its conclusion against literature will outscore a longer, padded one.
Yes — the full Research Design section is free to start, and you can sign in to save your work to your account across devices. When you are ready, export your IA to DOCX (Word) or PDF straight from the browser, formatted in third person and past tense as the IB expects.