IB Math AA Topic Ideas | Explained

IB math is a horror story for many. Not only do students fear the math exam, but they also fear writing the Math IA exploration. And inventing some good ideas for your Math AA sounds like an unattainable job.

It all seems like too much right at the start when you know you have too much to do. Detailed analysis requires you to work hard toward what you want. Ooh, it doesn’t seem very easy, and in reality…it’s still quite hard to manage.

Nevertheless, in this guide, we will take you through a few fantastic IB math AA ideas to help you select what you think will work best for you!

IB Math AA topics list

Here are a few Math AA topic ideas that can really help you!

1. Pascal’s Triangle – here, you can discover different patterns within this famous array of numbers. This can be simple if you understand what exactly you have to do. 
2. Monty Hall Problem – here, you can try to see how Bayesian probability works. You can even try to see how you can make this more complex to understand it better. 
3. Optimizing Areas – for a figure like a square, optimizing the area can be easy. But have you ever thought about how you can do that for a polygon? It would be interesting to see. 
4. Optimizing Volumes – similarly, optimizing volumes for something like a cuboid would be reasonably simple, but have you thought about how you can do this for other shapes too?
5. Analyzing the mathematics of fractals – this can be fairly difficult to study, especially if you try to see the similarity between different fractals. You can try to make use of mathematical techniques to further understand these geometrical patterns in much more detail. 
6. Chaos Theory – you can try to analyze the behavior of different chaotic systems, like the Lorenz system. This can be a little challenging to work on, but nonetheless super interesting. 
7. Investigating prime numbers – it can be exciting to study the different properties of prime numbers to see the patterns that emerge from them. 
8. Magic squares and cubes – you can see how magic squares and cubes work and what the science behind them is. 
9. Egyptian fractions – Egyptian fractions are different from the usual fractions in the sense that they can only have a numerator of 1. So seeing the interesting patterns that emerge from those can be super engaging. 
10. Chinese remainder theorem – this theorem is one that was posed over 1500 years ago and has ever since been studied like this. It mainly involves trying to understand the modulo operation. 
11. Time to travel to the future – this helps us see how close to the speed of light people can travel in time and how this works as well. 
12. Graham’s number – this number is one that is so big to even imagine that our brains would collapse even if we tried to picture it. 
13. Mathematical proof and paradox – this is a way to see how different methods of proof work and how we can have some logical errors when we think about working our way through these. 
14. Studying the mathematics behind the music – this can be helpful to see how different concepts involved in music theory work and how these can help us understand the connection between different musical compositions. 
15. Exploring the Fibonacci sequence – it can be very interesting to see the different properties and patterns in various fields like architecture. 

Now that you have a few topic ideas, let’s try to understand how you can come up with your own IA topic. Below, I’m sharing IB experts’ guide and tips that any IB student can follow.

Tips to compose your Mathematics AA topic

• You need to start with something that interests you. Remember, you can only work well when you are genuinely interested in what you are doing. 
• To come up with something you would like to work with, brainstorm different ideas to see what you come up with, after which you can choose what you like. 
• Narrow down the broad focus to a narrow one so that you understand what exactly you have to do and how that is going to help you. 
• Remember that the topic you select should allow you to go in detail about things. It should allow you to work hard toward what you are doing, so that you know how exactly you have to begin working!

Select appropriate topic ideas

With these tips in mind, you can definitely work your way through what you want in finding good Math AA topics for your IBDP and write your internal assessment following the rubric!

If you need help with topic suggestions or assistance in writing a Math AA from scratch, our team of experienced IB writers is here to help. We understand the intricacies of the International Baccalaureate program and are dedicated to helping you succeed. 

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Contact us or fill out our online order form with the necessary details for your Math AA or IB Math IA, and we’ll be more than happy to guide you through the process. 

Let us help you compose a strong Math AA topic following the IB criteria, that showcases your passion for mathematics and sets the foundation for a successful project.

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