IB Chemistry Extended Essay
The IB Chemistry Extended Essay (EE) is a 4,000-word independent research paper that requires original investigation of a chemistry topic. Done well, it earns up to three bonus points toward your Diploma score and demonstrates the kind of analytical thinking that university chemistry programs value. This guide covers how to choose a research question that works, what each assessment criterion requires, and which topic areas consistently produce high-scoring Chemistry EEs.
Chemistry lends itself naturally to the EE because it produces measurable, quantitative data and connects directly to existing peer-reviewed literature. Unlike subjects where the research question is more open-ended (such as history or literature), a Chemistry EE research question has a clear experimental design and a specific dependent variable to measure. This makes Criterion A (Focus and Method) and Criterion C (Critical Thinking) more straightforward to address — if you design your experiment rigorously and compare your results to published values.
A strong Chemistry EE research question specifies the system being studied, the variable being manipulated, the variable being measured, and the conditions under which the experiment is conducted. It should be narrow enough to be answered in 4,000 words, but significant enough to justify investigation.