the lanterna blog
Below you will find in-depth reports, thought pieces on modern education, as well as hundreds of tips on how to excel at the IB.
The countdown to Christmas: managing mocks
Normally, when it comes to the Christmas holidays, students are desperately counting down the days till they can have two or three weeks of festive fun. I have discovered, however, as I travel around speaking to all you IB students out there, that many of you, especially second year diploma students with mocks coming up,…
Let’s TOK this… Part 3: Taking TOK to the next level
So here we are. We’ve looked at real-life situations. We’ve looked at knowledge questions. Now we can get right to the heart of things and figure out how we actually DO the TOK thing: namely the essay and presentation. If you haven’t yet read the first two installments of this blog series, go have a…
University Applications: Where are you now?
Where to start? There’s no denying it, this term is tough. From the insurmountable amount of IA deadlines to the onslaught of homework and revision, it can be easy to slip behind on certain things that seem less important. Perhaps the easiest to forget is university applications. In your final year of the IB, the…
The 10 Stages of Writing your Extended Essay
Every IB student does it. Writing your Extended Essay is unavoidable. This doesn’t mean, however, that there aren’t a few bumps along the way. I find the process of writing an EE goes like this for most people: 1. Confidence Starting strong is always a good position to be in. You’ve got your idea set. You’ve…
The first year of IB, and how to help yourself through it
2016 has been a bit of a crazy year. Elections, referendums, Kardashian drama: we’ve had it all. Perhaps the craziest part of 2016, though, is that by ending, it means first year IB students (I’m talking to you class of 2018) have already completed a whole sixth of their diploma. And perhaps now, as the Christmas…
Let’s TOK this Part 2: Knowledge is… Power?
Hello again TOK-ers. In my first post of this series I talked a bit about HOW you find a real-life situation for your knowledge question. Continuing on with that theme, I thought I’d go into a little more depth about how you actually form that ever so tricky knowledge question. So my IB warriors, it’s time…
IB horror stories (and how to avoid them)
It’s the time when pumpkins grace the shelves of stores and a certain kind of latte becomes popular again. When some people think dressing up as clowns is just fun and games, and others freak out after watching The Blair Witch Project. That’s right, Halloween is upon us again. Here at the Lanterna offices, we are not ones…
Oxbridge Interview Tips
If you are reading this, then you probably know that the deadline for undergraduate applications to the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge is coming up soon (the 15th October to be precise). And if you are reading this, you probably also know that in order to get an offer from either Oxford or Cambridge, you…
Let’s TOK This | Part 1: ‘Is this real life?’
I’m going to be honest with you all: when I was studying the IB (not too long ago I’ll have you know…), I would often moan to my friends about TOK. It wasn’t that I found TOK boring, far from it actually— I loved the full-blown arguments that would always ensue in a TOK class—…
The Secrets to Writing a Brilliant Personal Statement | University Series Pt 1
The Personal Statement is probably the most crucial element of any university application. It is the closest an Admissions Officer will get to asking ‘who are you really?’, ‘what can you bring to the course?’ and ‘why should I choose you over anyone else?’. That last question is a really important one. You want to…
