IB Psychology – Grade Boundaries New Curriculum (Feb 2019)

Travis Dixon

6 years ago

Are you wondering what you need to do to get a 7 in IB Psychology?It’s a bit tough to say exactly because as of now (February 2019) we have not had any exams for this new curriculum. But as I’m marking my students’ mock exams I have also created the grade boundaries that I will use for IB Psychology until the IB releases theirs.

The following tables are what I’m using to convert my own students marks in IB Psychology. As our marks are recorded in letter grades I’m including this category, too.

A note for teachers: Before using these for your own students, you might want to try giving a few test runs first. For example, add up what you think a 4 or a C should be worth using a Paper 1 essay rubric and see if it matches with my boundaries.

You can download these boundaries here…

The Letter Grades are what I use for my internal school marks as we work on the letter system (not the IB’s 1-7 system).

Scroll to the bottom to find the Official IB Psychology Grade Boundaries

Mr Dixon’s IB Psychology Grade Boundaries – New Curriculum*
Total Overall Score
%	IB Score	Letter Grade
70-100	7	A+
58-69	6	A
46-57	5	B / B+ (≥52)
34-45	4	C / C+ (≥40)
24-33	3	D / D+ (≥28)
16-23	2	F
8-15	1	F
0-7	0	F
These boundaries use the old curriculum boundaries as a guide.

Paper One

PAPER ONE
Score /49	IB Score	Letter Grade
36-49	7	A+
30-35	6	A
25-29	5	B / B+ (≥28)
20-24	4	C / C+ (≥23)
14-19	3	D / D+ (≥17)
9-14	2	F
0-8	1	F
These boundaries use the old curriculum boundaries as a guide.

Paper Two Only for SL

Paper 2 Standard Level
/22 (SL)	IB Score	Letter Grade
18-22	7	A+
15-17	6	A
11-14	5	B / B+ (≥13)
8-10	4	C / C+ (10)
6-7	3	D / D+ (7)
4-5	2	F
0-4	1	F

Paper Two Only for HL

Paper 2 HL
Score /44 (HL)	IB Score	Letter Grade
34-44	7	A+
29-33	6	A
22-28	5	B / B+ (≥26)
15-21	4	C / C+ (≥19)
11-14	3	D / D+ (≥13)
9-10	2	F
0-7	1	F

Paper Three (HL Only)

While the above boundaries are using the old curriculum as a guide, I will point out that my Paper 3 boundaries are purely my own invention. This is because the nature of Paper 3 is now very different to how it was in the old curriculum. As of now, this is what I’d expect from my students. You will see the boundaries appear harder, but this is because I think Paper 3 is a lot easier than other papers (especially Question 1a-c).