so you finish paper one and you're feeling really good about yourself and you sit down to paper two and now you realize you actually have to know something about what you're writing so how are we gonna master this test first recognize that this test is tough 24 questions that you're only probably going to be prepared to answer four of them now in a normal year you're picking your favorite two questions this year we only have to do one so thank you covid uh the questions are gonna be quite vague though and this can make it difficult you get to write about what you know best but you don't really get a whole lot of parameters locking you in so for some students it can be hard to think about where to go with a particular question so what is this test it's based on the ibs world history topics of which there are 12 of them that run through through the last couple thousand years of world history there are 12 that your school chooses from most schools only cover two in depth for example my school this year um we we do uh the cold war we've historically done 20th century wars and and other schools do authoritarian states or challenges to democratic states your school's picking two of them those two topics are going to give you two questions each you then have to choose one question on this entire test to choose from to pick uh to actually write and you'll get 45 minutes to write that that can be daunting right you're gonna feel pretty good hopefully about four questions and then you have to pick the one that you love best you've got a five minute reading period like happens on every ib exam and then you've got 45 minutes to write now my students are often asking me you know how long does this have to be that there is no length requirement write what you know and are able to write and be as detailed and analytical as you possibly can within that 45 minute time frame now there's of course is a rubric and we're going to spend most of our time here talking about the rubric you've got 15 marks available on this rubric and and what does that mean so a lot of my students want to know dobie what do i need to do to get a four or a five or a six even and and those are those numbers can be hard to come by and they might shift a little year to year unfortunately the ib hasn't made this data very easy to find so i pulled this back from a couple years ago now now notice i just said the rubric is out of 15 marks that's for one essay for this year 2021 that we're in and when you guys take your exams in may of 2022 you're only going to have one essay so when we look at these numbers we want to cut them in half so if you are looking for a four on your paper two and let me tell you if you get a four on paper two and a four on your paper three and you knock paper one out of the park you're sitting pretty on your ib exams overall so to get that four you're looking at about a six or above on your essay six or seven to get that five maybe maybe a ten um or pardon me uh an eight to get a five to get that uh six you're looking at possibly a ten out of the fifteen marks and then to get that coveted seven um that would be an excellent essay and we break readers we do not see a lot of these you're looking at about 12 marks um out of the 15 available so so how do you earn these marks let's take a look at the rubric and i'm going to start from a baseline let's assume we all want to pass ib history and get at least that four we're going to talk about how how hopefully easy that can be for you the key to scoring well on this paper is knowing your stuff and understanding how it's going to be marked there are four components on this rubric for the ib exam now the rubric that you see behind me that's what we readers use to help us figure out a student's score i mean it's the same thing that's found in the history guide but it's just putting a little bit of an easier to use format those four components are your paper's focus and structure the knowledge that you bring to the table and your understanding of context the examples that you choose and your ability to link and make comparisons between them and the analysis that you provide along with different perspectives and a consistent conclusion we're going to go through each one of those steps but throughout i've highlighted that seven to nine zone because that's got you a year four and maybe pushing onto a five if things go well so focus and structure this is the the rubric strand that says you've got to understand the question that you're being asked if you don't understand and don't answer that question that you're being asked your paper is going to go off the rails and it is not going to score high so this is your chance to demonstrate that you understand the question that's being asked and you're answering all parts of the question we also care in ib history about the organization and the structure of your paper unlike some of you that might have taken an ap class that really doesn't care about how great of a writer you may or may not be ib does and your paper should have a structure of a traditional historical essay with an introduction and a thesis and and supportive paragraphs that might offer different arguments and support to those arguments it should all flow in a logical and consistent manner you should have a conclusion at the end so there does need to be some structure to this and this is going to come from effective planning of your paper try not to be repetitive don't don't say the same thing over and over again readers know if you are repetitive it is because you have not planned your essay well and i highlighted the seven to nine mark band check out how easy it can be to get a four you understand the question and you try to respond to it but maybe you leave off a part you only partially address whatever the question is looking for and then you make an attempt to follow a structured approach no attempt one big paragraph you're gonna have a hard time getting to that seven to nine mark band but that's a pretty easy target for us to reach or even go above knowledge and content you must include accurate and relevant historical knowledge and this is coming completely out of your head you've got to know your stuff for this paper you should try to explain historical concepts and ideas when applicable and you should try to place your your knowledge and events in the historical context as appropriate you should be able to explain some of the big picture of your paper while still focusing on whatever that topic is so you see that seven to nine zone you're mostly accurate and relevant you don't have to be perfect you can make a mistake here or there and your the events you talk about are generally placed within the historical context to bump up from there we've got to be mostly accurate not really have a lot of errors and then obviously the top mark band is going to be perfection you've got to know your stuff if you don't know your history you're going to have a hard time on paper too the good news is the questions are pretty vague and most kids can find a question that they feel good enough to write about on examples and links and comparisons your examples that you choose and many of the questions are going to have you choose two examples of leaders or two examples of wars from two different regions you got to make sure you're appropriately providing examples that fit the question and are relevant to the question and then you should be using those examples to support whatever analysis and evaluation you are providing and then when possible try to make links and comparisons between your choices that you have made so for example if you're writing about two leaders during the cold war don't spend half of your paper talking about leader one and the impact he had and the second leader two and the impact he had bring some links in while stalin did this truman did this or both stalin and truman did that make those links throughout your paper don't treat them like two separate mini papers analysis perspectives and conclusion this is really the the strand that separates the decent papers from the really strong papers you need to push beyond narrative and descriptive writing and provide analysis when we talk about narrative writing that is just you telling a story this happened then this happened then this happened you want to provide analysis you want to be analytical and that is giving the why of history so wherever you can in your paper if you're talking about some kind of historical event give the why explain why something happened explain to this explain a decision someone made and that is going to go a long way to bumping you up on this mark strand and then demonstrate that you have an awareness and then maybe offer an evaluation of different perspectives this is that historiographical record that you've probably heard about in your classes now be careful this does not necessarily require you to be name-dropping historians or even schools of thought though that's fine that's acceptable that doesn't necessarily mean you're going to do great on this paper i see a lot of students writing paper two and just name-dropping historian things they've memorized to program they almost sound like robots writing this historian believe that this historian believes this that is not necessarily helping your cause unless you are using them to support or maybe refute an argument so use those schools of thought or that knowledge of historians or that knowledge or perspectives to strengthen whatever argument you are presenting perspectives offer strength to your argument they should not stand in place of your argument and so to get that seven to nine all you have to do is move beyond description include some analysis within your paper but it doesn't have to be sustained for the whole paper that's a pretty reasonable way to get that four on your paper to bump it higher you need to have that awareness of different perspectives and offer an evaluation of different perspectives how strong is this argument or how weak might it be so the best way to prepare know your stuff you can't write paper too without knowing your stuff and you should be starting with your history guide the history guide and your teacher has this or you can just google it if you just google ib history guide for 2020 you will find it that was the first year that this history guide went into effect and you're going to find for example we see the cold war curriculum here and i've got seven or pardon me six bullets within the cold war curriculum that students are required to know within these six bullets the call of the ib will be picking out two questions to give you and literally those questions are going to be word for word from the curriculum you see in front of you for example the impact of two leaders each chosen from a different region on the course and development of the cold war so they might say evaluate the role of two leaders each chosen from a different region on the end of the cold war or on the beginning of the cold war they will be using this precise language on your exam so be comfortable with this curriculum and you can go through my channel and find a lot of videos that talk about all this cold war stuff i've got a few tips before we close it out pay attention to your topic every year as a reader i come across papers where kids are really excited to write about a war and leaders in a war and they write a long paper and they're feeling really good about it but they write about leaders during world war ii and their question is from an earlier topic where they were supposed to be writing about leaders in like the first millennium so be very careful if you are doing a cold war topic or 20th century wars topic make sure you know you are doing topic uh 10 or 11. know your topic number so you go directly to those questions read your questions very carefully and choose appropriate examples if they talk about two regions wars from two regions be very careful with that make sure you choose an asian war in an american war or an asian war and a european war or an african war in an asian war be very careful with your examples use your reading time to think this there's not a whole lot of reading that's necessary you're not going to read all 24 questions because you haven't studied them all only read those four questions that you've prepared for pick one of them and then you're probably going to have another four minutes to think about it and work out your paper in your head can't touch pen yet but once you can touch your pen once you get into that writing time spend five good minutes organizing your thoughts you know make sure you're you're comfortable with what your main arguments are going to be before you start writing your paper that's going to give you that structure and that's going to avoid that repetition that you need to avoid include your analysis if you're writing that something happened always try to include a sentence or two as to why that thing happened present multiple arguments but have a consistent thesis that is supported by your arguments and comes to that conclusion that makes sense based on everything else that you wrote and then finally just write if you're finishing early on your practice exams you're leaving points on the table so know your stuff and use all of your time to write and and don't leave anything on the table there's no sense in finishing early to rest your hand because you're done after paper two you get to go home and come back the next day for paper three that's all i got we'll do another one of these for paper three very similar to paper two uh but you guys should be ready to roll