IB Chemistry

The IB Chemistry syllabus has a good range of topic areas with each taken into sufficient depth to gain a serious understanding. The topics covered go over areas such as atomic structure, periodicity, chemical bonding, chemical kinetics, energetics, and equilibrium to build a solid level of fundamental understanding. This is then built on by additional theory covering acids and bases, redox potentials, organic chemistry, and analytical techniques. There are two levels of IB chemistry, standard level (SL) and higher level (HL); all the topic areas are covered by both levels, but the HL will cover go into much greater depth. The final component of the content is the option topic, every student needs to study one of four choices (this is assessed only in paper three). The four choices are, (i) Materials, (ii) Biochemistry, (iii) Energy, and (iv) Medicinal Chemistry. All have focused in different areas and other science choices might make the section to cover easier, for example for students that also take IB Biology the obvious choice would study Biochemistry as large parts are already covered in IB Biology syllabus.