IB Math AA SL, explained for parents: the papers, the marks, and what a 4 actually means

Your child has been doing this course for a year and you could not explain to a friend what is in it or how the number on the report gets there. That is normal: the IB does not write for parents. This is the version a parent needs, with the parts that matter for decisions.

What the course is

The IB offers four mathematics courses: Analysis and Approaches (AA) and Applications and Interpretation (AI), each at Standard Level (SL) and Higher Level (HL). AA is the more traditional course, built on algebra, functions, trigonometry and calculus, with statistics and probability alongside. It is the course universities generally expect for mathematics, physics, engineering, computer science and often economics. AI leans towards statistics, modelling and technology. They are different courses with different exams, and switching between them late is rarely simple (see switching in the final year).

AA SL is a 150-hour course over the two years of the Diploma, in five topics: number and algebra; functions; geometry and trigonometry; statistics and probability; calculus. Calculus and statistics get the most teaching time; algebra gets the least, even though every other topic uses it, which is one reason algebra slips show up across the whole paper.

How the grade is made

Three components, combined into a mark out of 100:

• Paper 1. 90 minutes, 80 marks, no calculator. Worth 40 percent. Section A is short questions; Section B is a few long, multi-part questions. Many SL students find this the harder paper, because every calculation is by hand and there is no calculator to check the algebra against.
• Paper 2. 90 minutes, 80 marks, a graphic display calculator required. Worth 40 percent. Same structure. The calculator does the arithmetic; the marks are for knowing what to ask it and for writing down what was done.
• The Internal Assessment. A written mathematical exploration of about 12 to 20 pages, marked out of 20 by the teacher and moderated by the IB. Worth 20 percent. It is usually done across the two years and finished in the first half of the final year.

A formula booklet is provided in both papers. Students who know it well save minutes; students who have never opened it lose them.

The three marks are scaled to their weights and added: the two papers contribute up to 80 of the 100, the IA up to 20. The grade boundaries are set on that total each session.

What the numbers mean

In the May 2025 session the final boundaries out of 100 were, as widely reported: 7 from about 80, 6 from 67, 5 from 53, 4 from 37, 3 from 26. The IB does not publish these for parents; they circulate from schools, and they move a few marks in either direction every session depending on the paper. Treat them as a map, and ask the coordinator for the official ones.

Read that way:

• A 7 is a final mark around 80 or above: roughly 64 out of 80 on each paper with a strong IA. Very few marks dropped anywhere.
• A 6 is around 67 to 79: roughly 54 out of 80 per paper. The syllabus is in place and slips are rare.
• A 5 is around 53 to 66: roughly 42 per paper. Solid on the short questions, patchy on the long ones.
• A 4 is around 37 to 52: roughly 30 to 40 per paper. Often this is a student who understands much of the course and loses many marks on execution, blanks and unfinished long questions. It is a pass. It is below what most selective courses ask for in maths.

The IA matters more than its 20 percent suggests at the boundaries. An IA at 16 out of 20 against one at 10 is six points on the final scale, which is close to half a grade. If the exploration is still unfinished in the autumn of the final year, improving it is one of the most direct ways to gain marks.

How the papers are marked

Marks are awarded for method as well as answers. In the mark scheme a typical question carries method marks (for a correct approach), accuracy marks (for the correct value) and sometimes reasoning marks. Two consequences for a parent:

• A right answer with no working can score less than a wrong answer with the right method. "Show your working" is not a teacher's habit; it is where the marks are.
• "Show that" questions give the answer in the question. The marks are entirely for the steps. A student who writes the given answer and little else scores nothing.

Reading a report or a marked test

You do not need to check the maths to read a test well. Look for four things:

1. The mark and the boundary. A test mark is hard to interpret without the boundary the teacher used. Ask for it.
2. Blanks versus errors. A page of blanks is content not learned. A page of working with wrong final answers is content learned and executed badly. They need different fixes, and the second is often quicker.
3. Short versus long questions. A student who scores well in Section A and struggles in Section B often knows the maths but cannot yet carry it through a long question; more practice usually helps more than more teaching.
4. The same mistake twice. Two sign errors, or two missed second solutions, on one paper suggests a habit, and practice with feedback is how habits change.

Where the marks are usually lost, in enough detail to recognise them on a page, is in where the marks go in AA SL. What it takes to move from one band to the next is in from a 4 to a 6.

The calculator, briefly

Paper 2 requires a graphic display calculator: usually a TI-84, TI-Nspire (non-CAS) or Casio fx-CG model, whichever the school teaches. It must be in the right mode (radians or degrees, as the question needs) and the student must know how to solve equations, find intersections and compute probabilities on it. Paper 1 has no calculator at all, and the two papers in May 2027 are on consecutive days, so both need to be ready at the same time.

Three things worth doing this month

• Ask the coordinator for the school's grade boundaries for the last mock or year-end exam, and for the date the Math predicted grade is submitted.
• Ask to see the last marked paper and sort the lost marks into blanks, wrong method, slips and presentation.
• Check that the IA is finished, or has a date.

Those three answers tell you a lot about the next six months.