Extended Essays in Computer Science are not easy to do. Computer Science is counted as an experimental science by the IB and thus requires you to do some kind of experiment in the realm of computer science and then report your findings.
As so few students attempt a CS EE every year, coming up with a ‘good’ CS EE topic will be half your struggle.
IB guidance on EEs
Specific IB EE Guidance on Computer Science
Topic guidance for Computer Science
Assessment
EE mark scheme guidance (specifically for Computer Science)
RPPF form (must be included in final submission)
Examples of Topics
Below are some examples of what topics our students have been doing recently (including the grade they received from the IB). Obviously, you cannot take any of these topics as it would flag as cheating; they are posted to give you an idea of the TYPE of topic that gets a good grade.
| Research Question | Grade received |
| To what extent are support vector machines more accurate than artificial neural networks at predicting ATP tennis matches? | A |
| To what extent is file size affected by compressing data using the Lempel Ziv Markov Chain 2 Algorithm rather than sorting and compressing data using the Burrows Wheeler Transform and Huffman Encoding Algorithms? | A |
| To What Extent are Pseudo-random numbers generated in Java more predictable than ones generated in C#? | A |
| To what extent does MP3 encoding minimize quality loss and file size more efficiently than OGG in terms of algorithmic efficiency and quality of the encoded file? | A |
| To what extent is the binary search algorithm suitable to find specified values from data sets of varying size? | A |
| To what extent is file synchronisation within a Peer to Peer (P2P) protocol a feasible alternative to synchronisation within a file hosting service? | B |
| To what extent is Depth First Search a more efficient algorithm than Breadth First Search in path finding in artificial intelligence for robot motion planning? | B |
| To what extent is hashing more suitable and efficient means to find specific values, than binary search, in different data set sizes? | B |
| To What Extent Does Password Length & Variation of Characters Affect the Entropy of a Password? | B |
| Under What Circumstances is it more efficient to sort a Collection and perform Binary search than searching an unsorted Collection when searching for a Specific item of Data? | B |
| To what extent is the AES symmetric encryption algorithm more efficient in regards to storage usage compared to the Blowfish symmetric encryption algorithm when encrypting data of varying sizes and types? | B |
Past essays
Because of plagiarism concerns, we cannot share any essays from past students on this site, but you are welcome to visit LD Anderson’s CS EE world site: CS EE World