Background information on data response questions

This section provides you with some practice examples of data response questions together with fully worked answers. Apart from the first three, all the examples are completely new so you will not have come across them before.

One or more of the questions in Section A on Paper 3 will be a data response question. That is, some data will be given either about a topic that is on the programme or about something which is not on the programme but which students should be able to apply their knowledge of topics that are on the programme to understand and answer the questions that follow. The data given may appear in several different formats e.g. text, graphical and/or tabular. The data may be from some current research or may be from a typical student experiment. The 'data' will not be accompanied by more than about five sentences of writing to help those for whom English is a second language. Because Section A is only worth 15 marks in total the data response question is likely to be worth about 9 or 10 of those marks.

These questions will usually cover understandings and applications and skills from different topics on the core/AHL part of the syllabus. The data response questions will usually be making links between the core topics rather than the Additional Higher Level (AHL) material as the questions that have so far been given in examinations are virtually the same for Higher Level as for Standard Level.

Apart from straightforward chemistry the data based questions may also include some questions on The Nature of Science.  The Nature of Science does not have to be tested in the data response question but it is quite likely that it will.

It makes sense to gain practice at this type of question. Some quite good questions did appear on Paper 2 of the pre-2014 programme which your teacher may have. Efforts are being made by the examination paper setters to ensure that good and genuine data based questions are set for the current the new programme. There are now of course several genuine examples of these on the Paper 3 examination papers from May 2016 onwards.

The links below give practice questions together with a detailed model answer scheme. Your teacher will either set some or all of these questions for you as assignments or you can request your teacher to give you access to them so you can do them in your own time. The first three examples are from past papers. The first, Data response Example 1, question is actually from the 2009 specimen paper from the past programme. It cannot be purchased but even so it is technically IB copyright and I may be asked to remove it. The next two questions are from May 2009 and are the Paper 2 TZ1 and Paper 2 TZ2 questions respectively. As these can be purchased I have not included the actual questions but you should easily be able to get hold of them from your teacher. What I have included after the questions is the minimum information/answer a student needed to give to score each point but then I have gone on to explain further the responses expected. For the specimen question I have also given some food for thought in terms of critical thinking that you might like to reflect upon.

All the remaining examples (Examples 4 to 9 inclusive) are completely new questions that I have made up specifically for this site. Most of the questions only require a knowledge of the Core material so are suitable for both Standard and Higher Level students. However some of them, e.g. Example 4 on iron pentacarbonyl, Example 6 on paracetamol and Example 9, on cis-platin are really only for Higher Level students, as they require a knowledge and understanding of topics on the AHL (e.g. the iron pentacarbonyl questions includes shapes involving 5 & 6 electron domains, and formal charge and the paracetamol questions involve a knowledge of organic reaction mechanisms).

All the questions are worth nine or ten marks. Because I have tried to make the chemistry interesting some of the sub-questions may be a little harder than the actual exam questions and I may have asked you to do a little more to earn the mark than on a real IB paper. However exposure to questions like this beforehand should make you able to face the data response question in the final examination with considerable confidence.