IB Score 45 Coaching in Abu Dhabi

Six subjects, each graded 1 to 7, give a maximum of 42. Theory of Knowledge and the Extended Essay together contribute the remaining points through the published diploma points matrix, bringing the maximum to 45. A standard Diploma has at least three subjects at higher level and the rest at standard level, and the core also includes creativity, activity and service, which is a requirement rather than a source of points.

Setting it out this way does two useful things. It converts a single intimidating number into a list, and it shows immediately that the core is not a formality: it is the difference between 42 and 45, and it is assessed against its own published criteria, written over months, and entirely within the candidate's control in a way that an examination is not. Candidates who treat the Extended Essay as an obligation to be discharged are leaving points on the table that a subject grade cannot replace.

It also exposes where coaching can and cannot help. A candidate predicted 7 in a subject does not need teaching in it; they need to not lose it. A candidate predicted 6 in two subjects needs precision work in exactly those two. A candidate whose Extended Essay research question is too broad in September has a fixable problem and one that becomes unfixable by February. Reading the profile tells you which of these you have, and almost nobody does that reading before buying hours.

The figures in the table below are the structure of the qualification rather than our interpretation of it. Every one of them should be confirmed against your school's IB coordinator or the IB's own published materials, which is also where the current failing conditions and the points matrix live. This page deliberately does not reproduce IB documents or dates; it points at them.

Theory of Knowledge and the Extended Essay are assessed independently, each against published criteria, and their grades are combined to produce the core points that take a 42 to a 45. They are also the two components where a strong candidate is most likely to underperform, for a simple structural reason: both are long-range tasks with internal deadlines set by the school, and both compete for attention with subjects that give feedback weekly.

The Extended Essay is the more recoverable of the two and the more commonly mishandled. Its quality is largely decided by the research question, and a research question that is too broad, not answerable within the word limit, or not genuinely located in the subject will cap the grade regardless of how well the essay is written. That is a September problem with a September solution, and a February problem with no solution. A single session interrogating the question before the first draft is one of the highest-value hours available to a candidate at this level.

Theory of Knowledge rewards a different skill, which is the ability to make a knowledge claim, examine it against perspectives, and do so with reference to specific examples rather than general ones. Strong candidates often write fluently and score below their ability because the essay describes a debate rather than taking a position within it. This is a structural habit and it is correctable with marked practice against the criteria.

There is a condition attached that every 45 candidate should know and many do not: a grade E in either Theory of Knowledge or the Extended Essay is a failing condition for the award of the diploma. A candidate on course for straight sevens is nowhere near an E, but the existence of the condition is the strongest available argument for taking both components seriously early. Confirm the current failing conditions with your coordinator, since they are set by the IB.

The jump from 6 to 7 is not more content. In every subject group it is a specific increase in precision, and because it is specific it can be targeted. In Group 4 it is command-term exactness and data discussion: uncertainty propagated and its effect on the conclusion discussed, limitations named with their impact, relationships explained rather than described. In Group 5 it is method presentation and, at HL in Analysis and Approaches, the structure of an extended investigation.

In Groups 1 and 2, the language subjects, the 7 lives in sustained argument. A response that makes a series of accurate points about a text sits below one that holds a single line of reading across the whole answer and uses the points as evidence for it. The difference is planning in the first two minutes, which sounds trivial and is worth a band.

In Group 3 it is judgement. Economics responses that analyse and stop sit below those that evaluate with support. History essays that narrate sit below those that argue and sustain it. Business Management responses that name tools sit below those that apply them to the stimulus and reach a conclusion. Each of these is a structural change rather than a knowledge acquisition, and each is demonstrable in a single marked response.

The practical consequence for a candidate with a term available is that the target should be one named behaviour per subject, demonstrated twice in marked work. That is achievable. Raising general performance across six subjects in a term is not, and any plan that proposes it has not read the profile.

Candidates who lose a seventh point in May usually lose it to something they already knew how to avoid. The largest category is time. A paper where the last extended question is attempted in four minutes loses marks that were fully available, and the cause is almost always over-investment earlier in the paper: a strong candidate writing a six-mark answer to a three-mark question because they can. This is a pacing discipline, it is taught with timed practice rather than with content, and it regresses under pressure unless maintained.

The second category is reversion. A habit corrected in February returns in May, because exam conditions strip away deliberation and leave only what is automatic. Method lines stop being written. Command terms stop being read carefully. Graphs get gradients without interpretation. The defence is repetition under timed conditions close to the session rather than a single correction months earlier, which is why a 45 plan should include timed work in the final weeks even when nothing is wrong.

The third is the internal assessment left at good-enough. A candidate with a strong profile often has an internal assessment that would score well and could score full marks, and the gap is usually one criterion handled thinly: an evaluation that lists limitations without impact, or a conclusion that does not connect back to the research question. Those are an hour's work each and they are worth the same as a mark gained in an examination.

The fourth is the Extended Essay submitted without a final read against the criteria. Candidates proofread for expression and not for criteria coverage, which are different activities. Reading a finished essay with the descriptors beside it, criterion by criterion, routinely finds marks in the conclusion and in the engagement with the research question. It takes one session and it happens after the writing is done.

For a 45 campaign the record serves a different purpose than it does for a struggling candidate. It is not there to prove improvement to a teacher; it is there to show the candidate where their own marks are leaking. At this level the leaks are small, consistent and invisible without data, which means the record has to be granular: not a grade per paper, but a count of which error class cost how many marks in each marked piece.

A workable log has four columns: the date, the piece, the error class, and the marks lost to it. Over six weeks the pattern is unambiguous. A candidate who finds that command-term errors cost three marks in one paper, four in the next and three in the one after has a problem worth a session; one who finds a single three-mark loss and nothing since has a one-off. Without the log both look the same, and the second gets treated as the first, which wastes a term.

The internal assessment and Extended Essay feedback belong in the same record, with dates. That serves the diagnostic purpose and a second one: a dated sequence of the student's own drafts with external feedback on each is the clearest demonstration available that the work is theirs. For a high-profile candidate whose work may be scrutinised, that record is worth keeping for its own sake.

What should not be in the record is any projected score. Nobody can convert a set of marked pieces into a predicted total with any reliability, and a tutor who offers a number is offering a guess with a decimal point on it. The log says what has been fixed and what has not. The total is decided in May by examiners, and this page publishes no estimate of it.

No tutor can guarantee a score, a grade, or a points total, and nothing on this page should be read as doing so. Where a guarantee appears in this market it is either unenforceable or hedged by conditions that are not displayed alongside it, and the honest position is to state the limit rather than to hide behind the hedge. What can be offered is specific work on specific weaknesses, with marked evidence of whether the weakness reduced.

This page also carries no statistics, which in a market full of them is a deliberate choice. Competitor pages publish satisfaction percentages, median tutor scores and cohort attainment figures with no sample size, date or method stated, and at least one publishes two contradictory figures on the same page. A number without a method is a liability for whoever publishes it and useless to whoever reads it, so there are none here.

Nor should a page in this market claim examiner access. Describing a tutor as an IB examiner without being able to evidence their current status is a misrepresentation, and implying that examiner status gives access to marking decisions, grade boundaries or paper content is worse. If examiner experience is relevant to a candidate, ask for the evidence and ask what specifically it is supposed to deliver.

The last limit is the one families least want to hear. Some candidates are not going to reach 45, and a reasonable adviser says so. A student predicted 38 in October with two subjects at 5 is not two months from a perfect score, and the useful conversation is about where the achievable points are rather than about the headline number. Selling a 45 campaign to that candidate is selling hours, and it costs them the chance to secure the points actually in reach.

Lessons are one-to-one over live video, with screen sharing, a shared whiteboard and the candidate's own marked work on screen. Gulf Standard Time lessons are scheduled around the Abu Dhabi school week: earlier on Saadiyat and the island where the school run is short, later in Khalifa City and Al Raha, and weekend blocks where weekday evenings are already committed to coursework. During Ramadan sessions move to post-Iftar timing without changing the plan.

IB Gram does not offer home visits in the UAE. Home visits are a service we run only in India. At this level the online format is not a compromise but the only way to reach the right specialist: a candidate needs someone who marks HL Chemistry to the published criteria and can also interrogate an Extended Essay research question in the subject, and the chance that such a person lives within a short drive of a particular Abu Dhabi address is low. In-home rates in the emirate are quoted at AED 180 to AED 500 an hour because the journey is priced in, and the journey contributes nothing here.

On time budgeting: a Diploma candidate in the UAE also carries Arabic, social studies and Islamic studies lessons alongside the programme, because private schools teach these alongside their licensed international curriculum. Any plan built on the assumption that the week contains more discretionary hours than it does will fail in the fourth week, usually by sacrificing the core components first, which are exactly the ones carrying the last three points.

Private schools in Abu Dhabi are overseen by the Department of Education and Knowledge, which supervises licensing and accreditation of private schools in the emirate. One practical caution: ADEK's professional-ethics rules bar school staff from paid private tutoring of students enrolled at their own school, and the MoHRE private tuition work permit carries a code of conduct that also bars serving students affiliated with the tutor's own school. Where no specialist is free for a subject at the hours needed, we say so and offer a different slot, a later start or a referral rather than filling the hour.