For the record, I'm not convinced the IB Diploma Program is a good thing. It doesn't really solve any of the problems with public schools, it shares the frustrating focus on standardized testing and password-guessing instead of real learning, etc.

I graduated from IB back in 2000 (with 43 out of 45 on my diploma), and I disagree here. The thing about IB's tests (and the Extended Essay) is that they're incredibly comprehensive. There's just no way to do well on them except by actually learning the stuff.

My time was before the current era of standardized testing, but I've taken an AP test (AP Physics C: Mechanics; my IB program didn't do physics), as well as the ACT, SAT (I and several IIs), and GRE. Unlike all of them, IB tests depend very strongly on both general intelligence (mostly the ability to write coherently) and subject-specific knowledge, and (importantly!) they don't saturate at the high end. It's quite difficult to get 7s on the tests, especially HL - I fought for four years for mine (and I still got two 6s in my weaker subjects).

Of course, it's totally possible for an IB program to be implemented badly, and produce students who get really low scores and sometimes miss the diploma entirely. The tests would detect that, though. I was fortunate to have a good program in my public school, plus I had a really strong work ethic back then.

You're right about ToK, though - it was basically useless.