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WT1 HL S1 (Mandela)
On 9 May 1994, a day before Nelson Mandela was inaugurated as President of South Africa, he gave a speech to the people of Cape Town. The student who wrote the sample written task for Part 1 was inspired...
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My father's red scare
Below you will read an opinion column, which explores the power of language and the state. The author of this text retells a story about his father and the United States government. Secret documents were...
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Exploring text types Free
The written task 1 asks you to imitate a certain text type. You may want to write a brochure, a speech, a letter or a memoir. But how do you know what structural elements to include in these types of...
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WT1 skills Free
The guide states that written task 1 is an 'imaginative piece'. Imagination, however, is not the skill that is assessed when you look at the criteria. In fact there are other 'hard' skills that you can...
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P2 Sample work
One of the best ways to learn is by example. In order to become familiar with Paper 2, you will want to look at how student work has been assessed in the past. Both poor and good samples are presented...
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Unpacking questions
As Paper 2 presents six unseen questions, you will want to become good at understanding and 'unpacking' exam questions. The term 'to unpack' is used here because it suggests that essay questions, like...
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PIE structure
You will notice that for many forms of assessment, you are asked to organize and structure your ideas. This lesson gives you a kind of 'recipe' for cooking up an essay as it were. The template approach...
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Coherent writing
In Criterion D for Paper 2, you find that you are expected to write coherently. But what is 'coherent' writing? Coherence is the glue that sticks good writing together. It is what makes one sentence depend...
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Criteria
Before you sit the final Paper 2 exam, you will want to have practiced writing and assessing essays in class, using the IB assessment criteria. Self assessment, peer assessment and teacher assessment...
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Tips
While the Paper 2 essay only takes 1.5 hours at SL and 2 hours at HL, in fact you can spend hours preparing for it. Good preparation will ensure that every minute of the exam is used wisely. We recommend...