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If you're wondering about how many students fail the IB, you've come to the right place. In this post we will breakdown the IB fail rate for both the May and November sessions.
IB Diploma Fail Rate
Session | Fail Rate |
|---|---|
May 2025 | 18.7% |
November 2024 | 26.9% |
May 2024 | 19.5% |
November 2023 | 27.6% |
May 2023 | 19.99% |
November 2022 | 18% |
May 2022 | 18.61% |
November 2021 | 12.84% |
May 2021 | 11.05% |
November 2020 | 24.23% |
May 2020 | 14.82% |
November 2019 | 30.07% |
May 2019 | 22.19% |
November 2018 | 31.02% |
May 2018 | 21.82% |
At first glance, the statistics above might suggest that the November session is significantly more difficult, given its consistently higher fail rate – typically around 10 percentage points above that of the May session. However, this disparity can largely be attributed to the profile of students who sit the November exams. Many are from highly competitive, top-performing schools in the Southern Hemisphere, such as those in Singapore and Australia, where academic standards tend to be exceptionally high which drives grade boundaries up.
We hope you found this post helpful. For more useful materials associated with the IB check out the wide variety of IA, EE and TOK exemplars available at Clastify and other guides available on our blog.
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