IB Extended Essay Topics: 70+ Winning Ideas (and How to Pick One That Scores an A)

The Extended Essay is the only 4,000-word academic paper a 17-year-old will write entirely on their own before university — and in the IB Diploma, it's also one half of the equation that controls 3 bonus points on your final 45-point score. Combined with TOK, those three points can be the difference between meeting and missing an Oxbridge offer of 38, 39, or 40 IB points.

This guide gives you 70+ tested EE topic ideas across all six subject groups, the actual IB A-grade criteria, the most common mistakes that cost a full grade band, and a structured framework to choose a topic that earns a strong A.

Quick answer: what is the IB Extended Essay?

The IB Extended Essay (EE) is an independent, 4,000-word academic research paper that every IB Diploma student must complete and submit. It is graded A–E by external IB examiners. Combined with the Theory of Knowledge essay and exhibition, the EE contributes up to 3 bonus points to your final IB Diploma score.

The IB's EE grading matrix awards:

So an A in the EE isn't just a nice-to-have — it's worth real points and protects your Diploma against the E-grade failing condition.

The IB Extended Essay grading criteria (in plain English)

The EE is marked out of 34 marks across five published criteria. Knowing the criteria word-for-word is the single biggest predictor of an A grade.

Criterion C alone is worth 12 marks — over a third of the total. Examiners reward essays that argue, weigh, evaluate, and reach a defended conclusion. They penalise essays that describe or summarise without analysing. That single observation — analyse, don't describe — is the most important habit to internalise.

How to choose an EE topic that scores an A — a 6-step framework

Step 1: Pick a subject before a topic

The EE must be in one specific IB subject. Your school will have a list of available subjects (typically your six DP subjects, sometimes World Studies or one of your friends' subjects with permission). Choose the subject in which you have:

• The strongest grasp of the methodology (history → source analysis; biology → experimental design; English → close reading)

• The teacher who will most rigorously supervise you

• A genuine intellectual interest, not just a strong predicted grade

The most common subject-choice mistake is picking your highest-predicted subject when you'd actually do better work in your most interesting subject. The IB examiner can tell the difference.

Step 2: Find a narrow, answerable research question

The single biggest determinant of EE grade is the research question. Vague or unanswerable questions score in the C–D range; narrow, focused questions are the starting condition for an A.

• ❌ Too broad: How does social media affect mental health?

• ✅ Just right: To what extent does daily Instagram usage of more than 2 hours correlate with elevated GAD-7 anxiety scores in a sample of 50 IBDP students at [my school]?

A good EE research question is usually 15–25 words, includes a specific subject of study, has a clear method implied, and starts with a command term — To what extent, How and why, Compare and contrast.

Step 3: Check the methodology is achievable in 4,000 words

Most failed EEs collapse because the methodology was unrealistic. A history EE that requires reading three full books of primary sources is fine. An EE that requires interviewing 200 people is not. Stress-test the methodology before committing:

• Can I collect the data or read the sources in 8 weeks?

• Is the methodology one that EE examiners recognise as rigorous in this subject?

• Will I have enough data to draw a defended conclusion?

Step 4: Pre-check you can score in every criterion

Write a one-paragraph plan and stress-test it against the published criteria. Can you show:

• Focus and method (Criterion A)?

• Subject-specific knowledge at the IB DP level (B)?

• Genuine analysis and argument (C)?

• A structure that allows clean presentation (D)?

• Real engagement with the process (E)?

If any criterion is weak, the topic is wrong.

Step 5: Test the topic with your supervisor

Before you commit, send your supervisor a one-page proposal: research question, methodology, sources/data, structure. A good supervisor will tell you within five minutes whether the topic is workable. Use that conversation.

Step 6: Lock the topic, and don't drift

EEs fail more often from scope creep than from topic mistakes. Once you've committed, your research question is fixed. New ideas go into your "next paper" file, not into this EE.

70+ IB Extended Essay topic ideas by subject

Group 1: Studies in Language and Literature

These EEs analyse literature, language, or media in your school's Language A subjects (English, Spanish, Mandarin etc. as a first language).

1. To what extent does Khaled Hosseini's use of unreliable narration in The Kite Runner mirror the moral evasions of his protagonist?

2. How does Margaret Atwood use intertextuality with the Book of Genesis to construct The Handmaid's Tale's critique of fundamentalism?

3. Compare the use of unreliable narrators in Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go and Donna Tartt's The Secret History — to what extent does each novel's structure reward the reader's complicity?

4. How does the visual grammar of Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis communicate trauma in ways the prose cannot?

5. To what extent does the structural symmetry of Their Eyes Were Watching God shape the reader's reception of Janie's autonomy?

6. An analysis of how shifts between English and Spanish in Junot Díaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao construct the immigrant identity of its protagonist.

7. How does Sally Rooney's free indirect discourse in Normal People construct moral ambiguity around her two protagonists?

8. Compare the function of silence in Toni Morrison's Beloved and Yaa Gyasi's Homegoing.

Group 2: Language Acquisition

For your second IB language. EEs typically analyse literature, linguistic phenomena, or cultural texts in the target language.

1. How does the use of regional French dialect in Annie Ernaux's La Place shape her construction of class memory?

2. A linguistic analysis of code-switching between Mandarin and English in Singaporean teenage texting culture.

3. To what extent does the use of formal vs informal address (tú vs usted) in Federico García Lorca's La Casa de Bernarda Alba construct power within the household?

4. An analysis of metaphor and meter in Pablo Neruda's Veinte poemas de amor.

Group 3: Individuals and Societies (History, Economics, Geography, Psychology, Business, etc.)

This is the most popular group for EEs because the methodology — source analysis, statistical analysis, case studies — is well-defined.

History

1. To what extent was the failure of the Schlieffen Plan due to logistical, rather than strategic, miscalculation?

2. How significant was the role of the printing press in the success of the Lutheran Reformation between 1517 and 1525?

3. To what extent did US covert operations under Eisenhower in Iran (1953) shape the conditions for the 1979 Iranian Revolution?

4. How significant was Pan-Africanism in shaping the political demands of the 1956 Suez Crisis?

5. To what extent did the partition of Bengal in 1905 catalyse the Indian independence movement?

Economics

1. To what extent has India's 2016 demonetisation policy achieved its stated objective of reducing black-money holdings?

2. How effective has the EU carbon emissions trading system been at reducing emissions in the cement sector from 2013 to 2023?

3. To what extent does minimum wage policy in Seattle (2015–2023) demonstrate the disemployment effect predicted by neoclassical labour theory?

4. A comparative analysis of the macroeconomic impact of fiscal stimulus in Germany versus the United Kingdom after the 2008 financial crisis.

5. To what extent does the Indian Goods and Services Tax achieve its stated efficiency gains relative to the previous state-by-state regime?

Geography

1. To what extent has the Singapore PUB's "Four National Taps" strategy made the country water-secure?

2. An assessment of the effectiveness of Mumbai's slum rehabilitation scheme in Dharavi from 2004 to 2023.

3. To what extent does the urban heat island effect in Delhi correlate with reduced economic productivity in measured commercial zones?

Psychology

1. To what extent does Dunbar's number explain the structural limits of friendship networks on Instagram in adolescents aged 13–18?

2. How significant is the role of confirmation bias in shaping young voters' political identity during a single election cycle?

3. An evaluation of the empirical evidence for the contact hypothesis in reducing prejudice in religiously diverse Indian classrooms.

Business Management

1. To what extent did Disney's acquisition of Pixar (2006) deliver the strategic value identified in Bob Iger's stated rationale?

2. How significant a role did the freemium pricing model play in Spotify's market dominance over Apple Music between 2015 and 2023?

3. To what extent has Patagonia's "1% for the Planet" strategy contributed to its brand equity?

Group 4: Sciences (Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Computer Science, Design Technology, Sports Science)

Science EEs are usually experimental — and the IB rewards rigorous experimental design heavily.

Biology

1. To what extent does caffeine concentration (0–4 mg/mL) affect the heart rate of Daphnia magna?

2. An investigation into the antimicrobial activity of Indian household spices (turmeric, clove, cinnamon, ginger) against Escherichia coli.

3. How does varying salinity (0–35 ppt) affect the germination rate of Vigna radiata (mung bean)?

4. To what extent does ambient temperature (15–35°C) affect the rate of fermentation in Saccharomyces cerevisiae?

Chemistry

1. An investigation into the relationship between the concentration of vitamin C in fresh and cooked broccoli and the duration of cooking.

2. To what extent does the iron content of fortified breakfast cereals from three brands match the manufacturer's claim, as measured by spectrophotometric assay?

3. How does the pH of soil samples from three locations affect the rate of decomposition of organic matter?

Physics

1. An investigation into how the angle of release (15°–75°) affects the horizontal range of a projectile launched from a fixed-tension catapult.

2. To what extent does the resistance of a copper wire vary with temperature (0°C–100°C), and how closely does the relationship match the published temperature coefficient?

3. How does the period of a pendulum vary with amplitude for large angles (5°–60°), and where does the small-angle approximation fail?

Computer Science

1. To what extent does a transformer-based language model outperform an LSTM at sentiment classification on a balanced dataset of 5,000 Indian English tweets?

2. An empirical comparison of three pathfinding algorithms (Dijkstra, A*, BFS) on a grid maze with 20%, 30%, and 40% obstacle density.

Group 5: Mathematics

Mathematics EEs explore a specific mathematical question with rigorous proof, modelling, or analysis. They tend to be the most demanding EE — and reward the most.

1. An investigation into the convergence properties of three different iterative methods for solving the equation x = cos(x).

2. A mathematical analysis of how the dimensions of a cylindrical can change the surface-area-to-volume ratio, and a comparison with five real-world can designs.

3. An exploration of the Fast Fourier Transform and its application to compressing a sample audio file.

4. A proof of Heron's formula and its extension to four-sided cyclic polygons.

5. A statistical investigation into Benford's law in real datasets — financial, scientific, and demographic.

6. An exploration of the mathematics of the SIR (Susceptible-Infected-Recovered) compartmental model and a comparison of fitted parameters between COVID-19 data from three countries.

Group 6: The Arts (Visual Arts, Music, Theatre, Film, Dance)

1. To what extent does Frida Kahlo's use of indigenous Mexican iconography in three self-portraits subvert European Surrealist conventions?

2. How does the cinematography of Wes Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel construct nostalgia through symmetry and aspect-ratio shifts?

3. An analysis of how Stephen Sondheim's use of dissonance in Sweeney Todd shapes audience moral response to the protagonist.

World Studies (Interdisciplinary EE option)

1. To what extent has the rise of fast fashion exports from Bangladesh between 2010 and 2023 reflected the predictions of dependency theory in economic and cultural terms?

2. How significant is the role of indigenous water management knowledge in shaping climate adaptation policy in Rajasthan?

3. The intersection of public health and information policy: how did social media policy in three countries shape COVID-19 vaccine uptake between 2021 and 2023?

Additional strong topics across subjects

1. The mathematics behind the secant-line approximation to π and its convergence rate.

2. To what extent does Japan's negative interest rate policy from 2016 represent a deviation from standard monetary economics?

3. A close-reading analysis of Sylvia Plath's Ariel poems through the lens of confessional poetics.

4. How does Pixar's narrative structure in Inside Out dramatise the multi-component theory of memory?

5. To what extent did the Soviet Union's industrial planning between 1928 and 1937 achieve its stated output targets, and at what social cost?

6. An evaluation of Newton's law of cooling using thermal data from three cup materials.

7. How does the lexical density of student essays correlate with examiner grades in IB English Lang & Lit Paper 1?

8. A statistical analysis of penalty-kick conversion rates by foot dominance in five seasons of UEFA Champions League data.

9. The mathematics of GPS trilateration: how do three satellites locate a user, and what are the theoretical error bounds?

10. To what extent did the Berlin Conference (1884–85) shape the contemporary borders of West Africa?

11. An evaluation of the antimicrobial properties of Manuka honey at three concentrations against Staphylococcus aureus.

12. How does the rhetorical structure of Martin Luther King Jr's Letter from Birmingham Jail mirror the structural arguments of Aquinas's Summa?

13. To what extent does the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (2018) meet its stated goal of restoring consumer control over personal data?

14. A modelling investigation into the structural stability of a tensegrity sculpture using vector analysis.

15. How significant was the role of microcredit in shaping female labour participation in rural Bangladesh between 2000 and 2020?

What separates an A-grade EE from a B-grade EE?

Educifly's EE supervisors and coaches see the same pattern across every subject. An A-grade EE does five things consistently.

It argues, doesn't describe. Criterion C (Critical Thinking) is worth 12 of 34 marks. A B-grade EE describes — what happened, what the literature says, what the data shows. An A-grade EE argues — what it means, what the alternatives are, why one reading is stronger than another. Every body paragraph should advance the argument, not summarise.

Its research question is genuinely answerable in 4,000 words. Most B-grade EEs failed at topic-selection: the question was too broad to defend with the evidence available. An A-grade EE has a question narrow enough that the conclusion is defensible.

It uses subject-specific methodology rigorously. A history EE uses primary and secondary sources, evaluates them, weighs them. A biology EE has clear variables, controls, repeats, and error analysis. A maths EE uses mathematics at the right level with full proof or model justification. Mismatched methodology costs marks immediately.

It uses sources well — and cites them properly. Examiners can spot a Wikipedia-only bibliography from page two. A-grade EEs use academic journals, books, primary sources, and properly formatted citations (MLA, APA, or Chicago — pick one and be consistent).

It reflects authentically on the RPPF (Reflection on Planning and Progress Form). Criterion E is worth 6 marks and rewards genuine engagement — what changed in your thinking, what surprised you, what you'd do differently. Stock language ("I learned a lot") scores 1/6. Specific, honest reflection scores 5–6/6.

Three EE mistakes that cost a grade band

1. Choosing the subject your friends are choosing. Pick the subject where you can do the best work, not the one with the most company in the school library.

2. Drifting from the research question. Word-count pressure pushes students into related-but-different territory. Every paragraph must directly serve the research question. If it doesn't, cut it.

3. Leaving the RPPF until the night before submission. Criterion E (6 marks) is graded entirely on the RPPF. Most students fill it in 30 minutes before deadline and score 2/6. A-grade students write each reflection within 48 hours of the corresponding supervisor meeting.

How Educifly supports the Extended Essay

Educifly offers structured Extended Essay coaching across every IB subject — topic selection, research question refinement, methodology design, source curation, drafting, mark-scheme alignment, and final review. Our coaches include former IB examiners and PhD-level subject specialists. Most of our EE students score an A or high B — meaningfully shifting their final 45-point Diploma score.

Book a free trial class with an Educifly specialist in your EE subject. We'll diagnose your topic, propose a path to an A-grade research question, and map out the next eight weeks.

FAQ — IB Extended Essay

How long is the IB Extended Essay?

4,000 words maximum. The IB does not penalise short essays directly, but anything under 3,500 words usually indicates undercooked analysis. Most A-grade EEs are 3,800–4,000 words. Words over 4,000 are not read by the examiner.

When is the EE due?

Internal school deadlines vary, but the IB requires final upload typically in November of IBDP2 (for May-session candidates) or April (for November-session candidates). Most schools require a first full draft 4–6 months before final submission.

Can the EE be in any of my six IB subjects?

Generally yes, subject to your school's policy. Some schools require the EE to be in one of your three HL subjects; others allow SLs. World Studies is an additional interdisciplinary option.

How many supervisor meetings should I have?

Three formal "reflection sessions" are required by the IB. These are the meetings recorded on the RPPF. Most students benefit from 4–6 additional informal check-ins with the supervisor across the EE timeline.

Do I need primary research?

Subject-dependent. Science EEs almost always require primary data. History EEs use a mix of primary and secondary sources. Maths EEs use proof and analysis. English EEs use the literary text itself as the primary source.

How are the 3 EE/TOK bonus points awarded?

Bonus points come from the combination of EE grade and TOK grade — see the matrix earlier in this guide. The maximum is 3 bonus points (for A/A or A/B combinations).

What happens if I get an E in the EE?

An E grade in either the EE or TOK is a failing condition for the Diploma — regardless of your total points. This is why protecting against an E is more important than chasing an A in some students' cases. Both ends matter.

Can I write my EE in a subject I'm not taking?

Some schools allow this with permission — most do not. The risk is that you don't have the subject-specific knowledge or methodology training to write at the DP level. The IB recommends the EE be in a subject you're taking.

Need help locking in an A-grade EE topic and research question? Book a free 30-minute trial with an Educifly EE specialist — we'll diagnose your topic and map the route to an A.