This section contains several sample individual oral commentaries from former students. You will want to look at sample work for several reasons, depending on who you are and what your aims are. Teachers may want to practice assessing students, comparing the grades that they would have given with the grades that we have given. Students may want to look at the sample work to learn from example. Either way we recommend you approach these sample works as an 'information gap' exercise, that is to say by making educated guesses before looking at the results. This can be done best by following these steps.

How to use the samples

Read the passage that has been provided for each commentary before listening to the student's response. In fact, you can already make guesses about what you think the student will say in his or her commentary before listening to the commentary. As a class make a checklist of items you would expect the candidate to include in a good commentary.

Listen to the recording of the commentary. As you listen check to see if the student has included all of the ideas that you would have included. Naturally, if you are not familiar with the work, the student will have different and perhaps better insights into the text. This does not always have to be a handicap though. As a stranger to the text, you may see things in the passage that the student is blind to. 

Assess the student's work using the assessment criteria from the IB. For each criteria, discuss what grade you would give the student together with fellow classmates or colleagues. Do not click on the [show] button, which discloses the teacher's marks and comments, until you feel you are confident about your marks.

Look at the teacher's assessment and comments and compare them to your own. Were you close? Do you agree or disagree with the teacher's comments? Perhaps you would like to post a comment to the sample work stating your opinion. Look at more sample works from this section to gain a sense of how lenient or strict teachers can be. All in all, this information gap exercise should be a learning experience.