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Send us a message — we reply within minutes. [fluentform id=”1″]Math IA: A Complete Guide to the Mathematics Internal Assessment
Most students lose marks on the Math IA long before they start writing. They lose them the afternoon they pick a topic.
This guide is about that decision and what follows it — how to tell whether an idea can actually carry an exploration, how Analysis and Approaches differs from Applications and Interpretation in practice, and where explorations most often go wrong. It is written by tutors who examine.
What the Math IA actually is
Your Maths IA is a mathematical exploration: a piece of coursework you write yourself, on a question you choose, using mathematics from your course.
Two things about how it is handled matter more than students expect. It is marked by your own teacher, and that marking is then externally moderated by the IB. Your teacher is not the final word — their marks are checked against the standard applied everywhere else in the world.
That has a practical consequence. An exploration that impresses in your classroom but does not show its mathematics clearly to a moderator who has never met you is a risk. Write for the reader who was not in the room.
Why “exploration” is the operative word
The IB does not ask you to reproduce a method. It asks you to explore something. That is why a perfectly executed piece of textbook mathematics often scores less well than a messier investigation of a question the student genuinely wanted to answer.
The internal assessment differs from subject to subject — a scientist writes up an investigation, a historian a historical investigation, and you write a mathematical exploration. If you want the cross-subject picture, our IB internal assessment guide covers what every IA has in common.
Choosing a topic that can actually score
What makes a Math IA topic viable rather than just interesting
A viable Maths IA topic passes three tests.
It needs mathematics you can genuinely use. Not mathematics you can name — mathematics you can carry through a problem and explain. If the technique only exists in your exploration as a quoted formula, the exploration has nowhere to go.
It needs a question, not a subject. “Fractals” is a subject. “How closely does the branching of a particular tree species follow a fractal model?” is a question. Questions produce explorations; subjects produce summaries.
It needs to be finishable. The most common failure we see is a beautiful question requiring data or mathematics beyond the course. Ambition is not rewarded if it collapses at the halfway point.
Topic families that work for Analysis and Approaches
AA rewards analytical and algebraic work, so explorations that give you something to do mathematically tend to travel well — optimisation problems where calculus does real work, investigations of series and their convergence, geometric problems approached through proof, applications of complex numbers.
The test is whether the mathematics is doing the thinking. If you could remove the calculus and the conclusion would survive, it was decoration.
Topic families that work for Applications and Interpretation
AI is built around modelling and real-world data, and the strongest AI explorations usually start with a dataset or a situation rather than a technique — regression against data you have actually gathered, modelling a real process over time, statistical comparison of two populations you have a reason to care about.
Where your data comes from matters. An exploration built on a dataset you found, understood and can describe is stronger than one built on numbers pasted from a source you cannot explain. Say where the data came from and what its limitations are. Acknowledging that your sample is small is not a weakness in an exploration; pretending otherwise is.
Topics that look strong but score poorly
Four patterns recur:
The famous problem. The Monty Hall problem, the Fibonacci sequence in nature, the birthday paradox. They are well-trodden, and it is genuinely hard to say anything of your own about them.
The borrowed investigation. Reproducing an exploration you found online, with different numbers. Moderators read a great many explorations.
The mathematics-free topic. A genuine personal interest with no mathematical content to explore.
The over-reach. A topic requiring university mathematics, where the write-up becomes a summary of something not understood.
How your exploration is assessed
Your exploration is marked by your teacher against the assessment criteria published in the current IB Mathematics subject guide your school works from, and the IB then moderates that marking.
Get the criteria from your teacher, and get the version that applies to your session. Subject guides are revised, and a criteria list circulating online may belong to an older guide. We deliberately do not reproduce them here — a student working to the wrong version is worse off than one who asked.
What we can offer is what we see repeatedly in explorations that do well.
What strong explorations tend to have in common
(Observed in our own teaching and examining — not an IB rule.)
They show their reasoning rather than only their results. They explain why a method was chosen, not just that it was. They engage with their own limitations honestly. They read as though one person wrote them with a question in mind, rather than as a set of assembled sections. And their mathematics is legible — a moderator should not have to reconstruct what you did.
Where explorations most often lose ground
Unexplained notation. Results presented without interpretation. A conclusion that does not follow from the work. Graphs that decorate rather than demonstrate. And the most common of all: an exploration that describes mathematics rather than doing any.
Maths AA IA: what’s different
Mathematics: Analysis and Approaches is the more analytical of the two courses, and its explorations reflect that. The mathematics itself is usually the object of interest — a proof, a limit, a rate of change — and the reader expects rigour in how it is handled.
If you are choosing between two ideas in AA, the one where you can derive something usually beats the one where you can only apply something.
SL and HL in AA
Both routes write an exploration. What differs is the mathematics available to you: the HL course carries additional and more demanding content, so an HL exploration is generally expected to reflect that reach. Ask your teacher what that means for your session’s guide — we are not going to invent a standard for you.
If you want structured help with AA content itself, our IB Mathematics AA tutoring works one-to-one on exactly this.
Maths AI IA: what’s different
Mathematics: Applications and Interpretation is built around modelling, statistics and interpretation, and its explorations usually live closer to the real world. The mathematics serves a question about something outside itself.
That changes what “good” looks like. In AI, an exploration that models a real situation adequately and interprets the result carefully often outperforms one using heavier mathematics on an artificial problem.
Sourcing data you’re allowed to use
Use data you can describe. Public datasets are fine if you can say where they came from, how they were collected and what they leave out. Data you gathered yourself is often better — not because it is more accurate, but because you can speak about it.
Check any licence or terms attached to a dataset before you build an exploration on it, and cite the source.
SL and HL in AI
As with AA, both write an exploration and the difference lies in the course content available. Your subject guide is the authority. Our IB Mathematics AI tutoring covers the modelling and statistics side directly.
Worked criteria walkthroughs
We do not publish model IAs, and we will not send you one.
That is a deliberate position, not an oversight. A complete exploration handed to a student is either useless — because you cannot submit it — or harmful, because submitting it is academic misconduct and the IB investigates it. Explorations are also individual by design; a strong one is strong partly because it is that student’s.
What helps instead is seeing how judgement gets applied. In one-to-one sessions we work through anonymised explorations with a student — where the mathematics carries weight, where the argument thins out, where a moderator would want more. That is the part you can actually use on your own work.
Structure, length and formatting
Ask your teacher for the current guidance on length and presentation. It is specified in the subject guide for your session, and quoting a number here that later changes would not help you.
What is worth saying: structure your exploration so a reader can follow the question from statement to answer. Introduce the question and why it interests you, set out the mathematics you will use, do the work visibly, interpret what you find, and be honest about what you could not settle.
From topic choice to submission
Exact deadlines are set by your school and vary by session, so work backwards from the date your teacher gives you rather than from anything you read online.
The stable pattern is worth knowing. The IB runs two examination sessions a year, in May and November, and internal assessment work is generally finalised and submitted before that session’s written exams. In practice your exploration competes for time with revision, which is why the students who find it manageable are almost always the ones who settled their topic early.
Getting one-to-one help with your Math IA
We tutor the IB Maths IA one-to-one, with tutors who examine. That means help choosing a topic that can carry an exploration, working out whether your mathematics is doing enough, and reading your drafts the way a moderator will.
We help you write your exploration. We do not write it. That line matters to us and it should matter to you — work that is not yours puts your diploma at risk.
Math IA: frequently asked questions
How do I choose a Math IA topic?
Start from a question you actually want answered, then check it against three tests: can you use mathematics from your course to answer it, is it a question rather than a subject, and can you finish it? Topics fail most often on the third.
What are the Maths IA assessment criteria?
They are published in the current IB Mathematics subject guide your school works from, and your teacher can give you the version that applies to your session. We do not reproduce them here, because guides are revised and working to an outdated list is a real risk.
How long should the Maths IA be?
Your subject guide specifies the current expectation — ask your teacher. Length matters less than whether a reader can follow your reasoning from question to conclusion.
What’s the difference between the Maths AA and Maths AI exploration?
Both are mathematical explorations. AA — Analysis and Approaches — tends to make the mathematics itself the object of interest, with analytical and algebraic work. AI — Applications and Interpretation — tends to start from a real situation or dataset and use modelling, statistics and interpretation.
Can I see Math IA examples?
Not from us as downloadable work, and we would encourage caution about sites that offer them. Submitting work that is not your own is academic misconduct. What we do instead is walk through anonymised explorations in session, so you can see how the judgement applies to yours.
Is the Maths IA different at SL and HL?
Both write an exploration. The difference lies in the mathematics your course covers, since HL carries additional content. Your subject guide sets the expectation for your session.
Who marks my Maths IA?
Your own teacher marks it, and the IB externally moderates that marking — so the standard applied is the same one used everywhere else.
What are the most common Math IA mistakes?
Choosing a topic with no mathematics in it, describing mathematics instead of doing any, over-reaching into content beyond the course, and leaving results uninterpreted.