IB MYP Sciences: Course Models and eAssessment Content Scope -- Practice Questions

These are original questions written for Marlbridge, modelling the kind of planning judgment MYP Sciences’ course-model structure actually requires. They are not reproduced IB material – the IB holds copyright in its own subject guides and exemplars. Use these alongside official exemplars available through your school.

Related: Course Models study guide and revision notes.

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Section A

1. Name the three course models schools can choose between for MYP Sciences. [3]

2. Is the choice of course model a student-level or school-level decision? [1]

3. Name the four eAssessment options the on-screen examination offers. [4]

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Section B

4. A student on a modular timetable studied biology in Term 1, chemistry in Term 2, and physics in Term 3. As the examination approaches, they focus revision almost entirely on physics, since it was taught most recently.

(a) Explain why this revision strategy is likely to leave the student under-prepared. [3] (b) Describe a better revision approach for this student. [3]

5. A student assumes that because their school taught an “integrated sciences” course rather than three discrete subjects, the content and assessment standard must be somewhat lighter.

(a) Explain why this assumption is incorrect. [3] (b) Describe what actually differs, and what does not, between a discrete and an integrated course model. [3]

6. A student has strong recall of facts across all their taught science modules but has done very little practice designing, running or evaluating their own investigations.

(a) Explain why this student is likely under-prepared for the eAssessment overall, despite strong content knowledge. [3] (b) Describe how this student should adjust their revision time allocation. [3]

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Section C

7. Explain why the MYP Sciences framework’s key concepts – change, relationships and systems – and its emphasis on investigation skills are described as deliberately designed to “transfer across whichever course model a school chooses.” Use a specific example of how the same investigation-skills task could apply equally to a discrete-model student and an integrated-model student. [6]

8. A student is unsure both which course model their school used and which specific eAssessment option (biology, chemistry, physics, integrated sciences) they are entered for. Explain why confirming these are two genuinely separate questions, not one, and why getting either one wrong could lead to poorly targeted revision. [6]

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Worked answers

1. Discrete, modular, integrated. [3]

2. School-level. [1]

3. Biology, chemistry, physics, and integrated sciences. [4]

4. (a) The eAssessment can draw on content from any science module taught across the whole year, not just the most recent one – biology and chemistry, taught in Terms 1 and 2, remain fully examinable. Concentrating revision almost entirely on physics leaves genuine, examinable content gaps in the earlier-taught modules, which may feel less “fresh” but are not less likely to appear. [3] (b) A better approach is to build a revision schedule that revisits all three modules across the year on a rotating basis – for example, one summary sheet per module, reviewed in rotation in the weeks before the examination – rather than a single pass through content in teaching order that naturally over-weights whatever was taught last. [3]

5. (a) The same underlying MYP Sciences framework, key concepts, and four assessment criteria apply regardless of course model – an integrated course is not a lighter or less rigorous version of the same content, only a different way of sequencing and blending the same disciplines together. [3] (b) What differs is how the content was taught and sequenced – as genuinely separate subjects (discrete), in rotating blocks (modular), or blended together (integrated). What does not differ is the assessment criteria, the underlying key concepts (change, relationships, systems), and the eAssessment’s content scope, which spans biology, chemistry and physics topics regardless of which model delivered them. [3]

6. (a) The investigation-skills task (criteria B and C) carries fully half the available marks – 50 of 100 – so a student with strong content recall but little practice in formulating a testable hypothesis, designing an investigation, or interpreting imperfect real data is under-prepared for where half of the total marks actually sit, regardless of how strong their factual knowledge is. [3] (b) This student should shift a substantial share of remaining revision time toward practising investigation skills specifically – formulating hypotheses, planning a fair test, interpreting and evaluating real or sample data sets – so that revision time is weighted proportionately closer to how the marks are actually distributed, rather than continuing to concentrate on content recall alone. [3]

7. The key concepts (change, relationships, systems) and the investigation-skills task are framed at a level of generality that does not depend on which specific disciplines a piece of content came from or how it was sequenced – designing a fair test, forming a hypothesis, collecting and interpreting data, and evaluating a method’s limitations are the same underlying skills whether the investigation happens to be framed in a biology, chemistry or physics context. A discrete-model student who studied biology as a standalone subject and an integrated-model student who studied the same content blended with chemistry and physics topics can both be given an investigation task – for example, designing an experiment to test how a variable affects a plant’s growth rate – and both would be assessed against exactly the same investigation-skills criteria, since the skill of designing and evaluating that specific investigation does not depend on how the surrounding curriculum happened to be packaged. [6]

8. Course model (discrete, modular, integrated) describes how the school taught and sequenced the content across the year, while the eAssessment option (biology, chemistry, physics, integrated sciences) describes which specific on-screen examination the student will actually sit. These are genuinely separate questions because a school’s teaching structure does not automatically determine the examination option – for example, a school could plausibly teach content in a modular sequence across three discrete sciences but still enter students for the integrated sciences eAssessment option, or vice versa. Getting the course model wrong could lead a student to organise revision around the wrong unit boundaries (assuming content was taught in isolated blocks when it was blended, or vice versa); getting the eAssessment option wrong could lead a student to prepare for the wrong specific examination content scope entirely. Confirming both separately and explicitly, rather than assuming one determines the other, avoids revision being targeted at the wrong structure, the wrong content scope, or both. [6]

Official syllabus

International Baccalaureate Organization, Middle Years Programme Subject Brief – Sciences, from 2014 – the same source cited by the study guide and revision notes. Verified 2026-09-06.