MR SPENCE HISTORY
Grading of an IB Essay
The essay rubrics for IB are the same for SL and HL. The full rubric is in the IB Guide. Very simply they operate like this:
Level One or Two (0-4):
You have not really understood the question
Level Three and Four (5-7):
The question but lacks details.
Often students pad their essays with irrelevant material.
For instance, they will learn three paragraphs on the causes of a war and then switch the order depending on the question.
Level Five (8-9):
The analysis is more successful and includes discussion on the key component of the question compared to other factors.
Level Six (10-11):
There is an attempt to show some evaluation on how far the key idea of the question is true.
For instance you have explained how the issue of succession was a source of conflict in Castile and also why its importance was overstated.
Low Level Seven (12-13):
The essay is primarily evaluative.
When analysing other factors the evaluation is included in the main body on the topic of the question.
There is not a separate paragraph for an idea that is not part of the question.
High Level Seven (14-15):
The evaluation is of a high standard and you are able to attribute the differing views to a particular Historian or a group of Historians e.g. Arab scholars in this case.
Remember that for Paper 2 a Seven is 24/30 and in Paper 3 it is usually around 31/45, so not every answer has to be at a Level Seven, but it would certainly be helpful to make sure at least one in your exam is.
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The History IA
The IA should be the easiest part of the IB History course. The source analysis is identical from the methodology of Paper One, and Section 2 is only a 1300-word essay. The only confusing part is the reflections (which are not reflections at all). But if you follow the guide below, even this part is not so difficult. You simply need to identify a challenge historians face, how they overcome it, and how these issues were demonstrated in your research. The reason that most students score poorly, aside from a lack of academic research, is a poor question. You should aim to generate a question that can be adequately covered in 1300 words. An IA is not the place to tackle big events or movements. You should aim to take smaller moments in history and then find the big ideas that influenced events. Another way to approach the question is to find a distinct historical debate that we dealt with. I have given a number of potential questions. Hopefully, you can find one that you would like to investigate.