I might be ignorant so if there is anything that I say which is wrong or doesn't make sense, call me out.

This is all theoretical btw. Not having M21 exams have the following disadvantages:

1. It will likely disincentivize students to study their material as they will not be tested on it. This leads to them not being ready for university. Furthermore, it defeats the purpose of educational institutes i.e. to learn.
2. The IB algorithm will likely give us students unfair grades. This is because many of us underperform during the 1st semester of our 2nd year because we are busy writing IAs and applying to universities. Consequently, some students who qualify for higher grades will get lower grades and vice versa.
3. Due to unfair and inaccurate grading, universities will likely accept and reject candidates who didn't deserve it. Some candidates would have achieved much higher with exams than without exams but because of the IB algorithm, they might lose out on many good universities. The opposite would also likely take place.
4. The value of the IB Diploma for M21 can potentially decrease.

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Furthermore, M21 exams can provide the following advantages:

1. It can force students to work harder which will increase their work ethic can possibly prepare them even more for university.
2. It can possibly differentiate between conscientious/persevering students and lazy students. This can increase the confidence of the hard-working students in the future and create an experience that lazy students can reflect upon. I realize that some students will have situations where it is unrealistic for them to get the grades they would have gotten without Covid-19. But exams will still motivate them to learn more and achieve more.

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I understand that there are reasons why M21 exams shouldn't take place. However, we shouldn't try to get exams canceled because it will make us feel better. Your feelings shouldn't be based on achieving 45 points. We should strive to get the highest grade we can get while getting good sleep, exercising, and maintaining a healthy diet. I am sure if we all spent 30 mins exercising instead of using Reddit, spent 1 hour on more sleep instead of Tik Tok, we would feel better. I know this hard in practice but we should aim for the theoretical best we can think of.

Having no exams shouldn't be the goal. There are better alternatives such as further reduction of coursework, online exams to stay safe from covid-19, and possibly more. The quality of the online exams is dependant on IB. If they fail to deliver fair online exams, then it is their fault and it should not be used against us.

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Please be kind to me if I have said something stupid.

Edit: I had a nice discussion with my friend about this and his experience with online learning was the opposite of mine. His teachers sucked and my teachers were amazing. I argued that there are so many good resources online for every subject. I can self-learn with those resources and asking questions from Reddit and still get a high IB score. He raised a very good point on this that if we self-learn, what is the point of IB? Like that is not what the IB is about. Why are we paying schools so much for just learning by ourselves then? We should be paying schools much less. IB should make exams free this year.

My new conclusion is that exams should happen but IB should make the exams free and possibly give us money for each exam we take, and maybe give us some of the tuition we gave them. It is unrealistic but it is fair. Maybe the IB should make it mandatory for the schools to reduce tuition fees.