Blog
May 2026 Paper 2: Sample Response 2 (Q2)
This Paper 2 essay is a standard student response. The student does everything teachers ask of them in the course. They respond to the question. They provide evidence. They know their literary works....
The New Dark Ages, Possibly
When I was a younger teacher – that is, a much younger teacher – I spent much time and enjoyed reading the polemical arguments of the American writer, Neil Postman. In the event, you haven’t read Mr....
May 2026 Paper 2: Sample Response 1 (Q2)
This week, we are posting our first May 2026 Paper 2 model example on the site. This is also the first essay we are publishing under the “new” criteria for Paper 2. The IB has added criterion B2 from...
Student Access - How to Provide it for Free
This week, we’ve updated all the how-to portions of the site: how to navigate it, how to set up student access, how to ask questions and more. The larger InThinking team also created a set of video tutorials...
Back to School (For Some)
If you are in a southern hemisphere IB school, you will, we hope, forgive the self-absorption of your colleagues in the north. For us northerners, it is back to school time. At InThinking, we haven't...
Summer Renovations – New, Fresh Look to the Site
Over our summer holidays, we metaphorically renovated the house. Our site has a new, fresh look in line with all the other InThinking subject sites. You will find we relocated a lot of our materials...
Best Books - January to June 2026
Looking back at the last six months, I have read a lot of nonfiction. A lot. Two stand out books took my breath away: Man’s Search for Meaning and Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice from Dear Sugar. I was...
May 2025 Paper 2: Sample Response 5 (Question 1)
This is the fifth, and for the time being, final Paper 2 we are publishing from the May 2025 exams. It is another excellent response to question #1: Discuss how the writers of two works you have studied...
May 2025 Paper 1: Sample Response 3 (Digital Divide)
This week, we are publishing our 3rd exemplar from the May 2025 Paper 1 examination based on an infographic from the Good Things Foundation, a charity focused on “fixing the digital divide – for good”...
May 2025 Paper 1: Sample Response 3 (Real Estate)
This week, we are publishing our 3rd Paper 1 from this May 2025 examination. We’ve published one exemplar, found here, that scores higher than this model example. We’ve also published one exemplar,...