ib history paper 1 essay

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Sat / act prep online guides and tips, every ib history past paper available: free and official.

International Baccalaureate (IB)

Taking a practice IB History exam before the actual exam will help you familiarize yourself with the length, style and format of the test. In this guide, we explain the IB History test format and link to the best past papers available . At the end, I'll explain how best to use these IB History past papers for your studying.

Disclaimer: these free exams should be used at your own risk. The exams are not authorized by the IBO and were most likely put up online without the IBO's consent.

2022 IB Exam Changes Due to COVID-19

Because of the ongoing COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic, the IB has decided to extend the adaptations which were put in place for 2021 to 2022. May 2022 IB assessments will have two routes, exam and non-exam, depending on which your school chooses. Stay up to date with the latest information on what this means for IB diplomas, course credit for IB classes, and more with our our IB COVID-19 FAQ article .

IB History Exam Format

The IB History course was completely revamped in 2017. Now, there are five prescribed subjects:

• Military leaders
• Conquest and its impact
• The move to global war
• Rights and protest
• Conflict and intervention

Your teacher will choose one that you'll cover, and you'll be tested on this for paper 1 (one hour in length).

There is also a list of twelve world history topics. For paper 2 (1.5 hours), you'll cover two of these:

• Society and economy (750-1400)
• Causes and effects of medieval wars (750-1500)
• Dynasties and rulers (750-1500)
• Societies in transition (1400-1700)
• Early Modern states (1450-1789)
• Causes and effects of Early Modern wars (1500-1750)
• Origins, development and impact of industrialization (1750-2005)
• Independence movements (1800-2000)
• Evolution and development of democratic states (1848-2000)
• Authoritarian states (20 th century)
• Causes and effects of 20 th -century wars
• The Cold War: superpower tensions and rivalries (20 th century)

For students taking IB History HL, they'll have a final paper (paper 3) that is 2.5 hours and will cover one of the four Depth Studies:

• History of Africa and the Middle East
• History of the Americas
• History of Asia and Oceania
• History of Europe

Current IB History Papers

The best source for up-to-date IB History past papers is the IBO store . To find them, search "history exam paper." Each paper and each mark scheme cost about $3 for older tests or $4 for more recent tests. That means a full test's worth will cost you about $12-$16 for SL or $18-$24 for HL. (While the IBO site has a sample SL/HL paper 2 available for free , it's from November 2005, predating the most recent syllabus updates.)

Currently, the IB store has papers from 2011 through 2018, but we recommend only purchasing papers from May 2017 tests or later, as those are the exams that match the new syllabus. Be sure to check not just the test date but also the depth-study area for each exam paper and mark scheme you purchase to make sure they match up—you wouldn't want to purchase a History of Asia and Oceania exam paper but a History of Europe mark scheme!

How to Use IB History Past Papers

Each full IB History practice exam will take you 2.5 hours for SL or 5 hours for HL, so you need to get the most out of each test. Below are some pointers for your practice.

Tip 1: Take Papers 1 and 2 Consecutively (If Possible)

For both IB History SL and HL, papers 1 and 2 are administered one after the other, requiring you to maintain your concentration and testing stamina for 2.5 hours. Part of practicing for the test means building up your testing endurance so that you're not making careless errors or losing focus towards the end of the tests.

IB History HL includes a third, 2.5-hour paper administered on a second day of testing, which you should also try to match in your practice schedule. Having a test spread out over multiple days means that you can't just cram and then immediately forget everything after you've finished papers 1 and 2; you'll need to practice retaining information even after the 2.5-hour slog of the first day's papers 1 and 2.

If you don't have time in your schedule for a full 2.5-hour session (or for two 2.5-hour sessions two days in a row for HL), then splitting papers 1 and 2 up over multiple days is OK. Just make sure that in your studying you follow this next tip:

Tip 2: Time Yourself on Each Paper

You must get used to the timing pressures of this exam. The time allowed per paper is:

IB History SL

• Paper 1—1 hour
• Paper 2—1 hour 30 minutes

IB History HL

• Paper 3—2 hour 30 minutes

Don't give yourself extra time. If you do, you will not figure out your pacing for the real exam and will likely score higher than you actually will the day of the test. I want these practice exams to give you an accurate picture of your actual test score.

Stephan Baum/ Wikimedia

Tip 3: Review Your Mistakes!

When you complete your exam (end of Paper 2 for SL or end of Paper 3 for HL), check every mistake. If you skip this step, you will not learn from your errors, and you'll keep making them.

You need to take at least an hour reviewing your exam. I know this may seem like a lot of time, but you want quality practice. If you only end up taking two practice tests with detailed review, you will be better prepared than if you took six tests with no review.

What's Next?

Taking IB History right now? Round out your studying with our complete IB History notes and study guide .

Ready to jump into some US History topics? Learn about the Platt Amendment and Ida Lewis . If you're more interested in political history, be sure to also check out our articles on checks and balances in the US government and how the executive branch can check the judicial branch .

Or perhaps you're interested in learning something that might not come up in history class? Find out more about David Ghantt and the Loomis Fargo heist , the complete history of hip hop , and the competing claims for invention of the 3-hole punch .

Learn more about the IB course offerings:

• The Complete List of IB Courses and Classes
• Which IB Courses Can I Take Online? Can I Get an Online IB Diploma?

As an SAT/ACT tutor, Dora has guided many students to test prep success. She loves watching students succeed and is committed to helping you get there. Dora received a full-tuition merit based scholarship to University of Southern California. She graduated magna cum laude and scored in the 99th percentile on the ACT. She is also passionate about acting, writing, and photography.

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IB History EE examples

Filter exemplars, to what extent were queer people liberated in weimar germany, 1919-1933, to what extent were the nuremberg trials defendants afforded a fair due process, want to get full marks for your ee allow us to review it for you 🎯, to what extent was the popular violence of the cultural revolution driven by mao’s need to eliminate opposition, to what extent was german defeat in the battle of stalingrad a result of german failures, to what extent were legal measures responsible for the exclusion of jews from german society from 1933-1938, fast track your coursework with mark schemes moderated by ib examiners. upgrade now 🚀, to what extent did logistical and environmental implications hinder napoleon’s victory in the russian campaign of 1812, to what extent was the british government responsible for the collapse of the sunningdale agreement of 1973, to what extent was josef mengele’s experimentation on ethnical minorities in the auschwitz-birkenau extermination camp in the years 1943-1945 based on nazi ideology over actual scientific investigation, to what extent were the foreign parties involved insrebrenica, bosnia & herzegovina responsible for the collapse andsubsequent genocide of srebrenica, how did the tactics used in the fight for racial equality, in the united states, change in the 20th century, ¿hasta qué punto el franquismo utilizó el deporte español como herramienta de adoctrinamiento nacionalista, to what extent was nationalism the most significant cause of the dissolution of yugoslavia, what was the role of i̇smet i̇nönü's personal efforts in the transition to the multi-party political system in turkey 1945-50, how accurate is erich eyck in claiming that the great depression was the most significant reason for hitler’s rise to power in january 1933, to what extent can the failure of the comprehensive agrarian reforms programme (carp) during corazon aquino’s administration be attributed to her leadership from 1986-1992, 第42および45議会下での憲政会の普通選挙法に対する姿勢の変化は、どの程度1919〜22年の一般民衆による普選運動が要因だったか (29/34), to what extent was the 1948 arab-israeli war a result of whitehall intervention, to what extent were german reinforcements responsible for the victory of the finnish whites in the finnish civil war of 1918, to what extent was ‘ambitio’ a major factor in bringing about the end of the roman republic, how did the lavender scare impact united states domestic policy (1947-1959), to what extent did the guomindang fight less effectively than the chinese communist party during the second sino-japanese war, how significant was the aftermath of the black death in the transition from gothic architecture to renaissance architecture in early 15th century florence, why was the post war trial in japan (1946-48) treated in a less significant manner than the one in germany (1945-46), what was the significance of diseases and the role of doctors and hospitals in nazi german concentration camps of auschwitz and majdanek and to what extent it contributed to the extermination of prisoners, to what extent did the decline of the ottoman empire lead to british support for the creation of the zionist homeland, to what extent were the german population unaware of the existence of exterminationist policies between 1941-1945, modernization challenges in the middle east, to what extent did germany's failure to defeat britain cost them the war, what are the similarities and differences between germany’s foreign policy towards russia and ussr before the two world wars, to what extent did the french revolution change the role of women in society between 1789 and 1815, to what extent did britsh west africa contribute to britain's success in the second world war, ee checklist, what was the most significant reason that slavery was legal in brazil and took until 1888 to be fully abolished, who killed kirov, to what extent did the weakness of his opponents contribute to the rise to power of hitler.

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IB History: How to Include Historiography in Your Essays

Officially, historiography is “the writing of history” but it can generally be thought to   refer to other historians’ perspectives on a historical event or figure . It is crucial you include historiography in your essays. Especially if you are aiming for a high score (6+) in IB History. The IB states in their mark scheme that in order to receive a 13-15 on a paper there must be “an evaluation of different perspectives, and it must be integrated effectively into the answer.”  

It can be quite difficult at first to memorise and incorporate historiography naturally into your essays. This is usually because it is quite specific and a new concept for most students. However, there are two ways to make this aspect of IB History a little easier.

Memorising Historiography

Throughout your course, you will encounter historiography through your teacher, textbooks, or personal external research. Whenever you find a quote or a school of thought, note it down in a separate document or spreadsheet. If you are able to, create a shared spreadsheet with your classmates. Each student can update then it with any useful historiography that they find. You can further organise this spreadsheet by including additional columns for schools of thought or specific topics. Having all of your historiographies in one collective place makes it a lot easier to review them rather than having to look through pages and pages of notes. 

Furthermore, you can use flashcards to help memorise some specific quotes or overarching perspectives. Write the historian or school of thought on one side. On the other side of the flashcard, write their quote or what the explanation of the perspective is. Go through them periodically and it will help you to memorise them in the long term.

With regards to which historiography to memorise, it is important to remember that it will be incredibly difficult to memorise every piece of historiography relating to your curriculum. This is Especially if there are many long quotes. Try and find historiography that can be applicable to large portions of your curriculum’s content and memorise those. That way, you can incorporate that historiography into a variety of different essay topics. 

You can also memorise an overview of a historian’s perspective or a smaller section of their quote, rather than memorising the entirety of the quote provided. As cliche as the saying is: “work smarter, not harder”. Only choose the most relevant and versatile pieces of historiography instead of simply memorising everything.

One example from my personal curriculum is with Paper 2 Authoritarian States, specifically Hitler’s Rise to Power. I always used Ian Kershaw’s Hitler Myth . This is the idea that Hitler’s charisma and oratory skills were the main reasons for the Nazi Party’s success. This was so useful for this particular topic because I did not have to memorise long quotes. On top of that, it fit into most Rise to Power questions that came up in exams. 

Incorporating Historiography

When incorporating historiography into your essays, it is important to remember that you should not simply be mentioning historians or schools of thought for the sake of doing so. Historiography should not replace your arguments but instead support them. One way to ensure this is to build your argument first and incorporate historiography towards the end of your paragraph. You can use phrases such as:

• This perspective is shared by…
• In reference to ______, [historian] stated that…
• This view is contrasted by…
• On the other hand, [historian] has stated that…

Once you have added historiography to your argument, offer your personal opinion on it in the context of your essay and evaluate that piece of historiography. Do you agree with this historian or school of thought, and why or why not? This helps to show that you truly understand what it is you are talking about. It also shows that the historiography is actually adding value to your essay.

One example where I did this in an essay was for the following exam question:

“Discuss the view that the use of force was the main method used to establish authoritarian rule in one state you have studied.”

“One of the more successful ways in which the Nazis rose to power was through Hitler’s cult of personality and his oratory skills. Kershaw was a strong proponent of the ‘Hitler Myth’ which is the idea that Hitler was successful for the Nazi’s rise to power and that, without him, the Nazi party would not have succeeded. Kershaw stated that it was Hitler that engaged and persuaded many people who would have otherwise only been marginally interested in the NSDAP.” (Cho, 2022)

At the end of the day, it is more important to have strong arguments and evidence rather than numerous pieces of historiography. Nevertheless, for those hoping to receive higher grades in IB History, remember to be selective in what you choose to memorise and to evaluate the historiography in your essay!

You may also like…

• Cynthia’s overview on of the History IA
• Zeynep’s tips on how to ace History paper 1

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IB English Paper 1 Explained

Ace your IB English Paper 1 exam with the #1 IB English Resource for 2022 as Voted by IB Students & Teachers

IB English Paper 1 is one of those nerve-wracking experiences that everyone has to endure. It's especially scary because you have no idea what you'll end up writing for your final exam–and your grades depend on it!

The best preparation you can do is be acutely aware of the exam structure and proven strategies that have worked for past IB7 graduates.

If you want to fully wrap your head around the IB English Paper 1 guided analysis, then this quick guide is for you.

Meet your instructor Jackson Huang, Founder of LitLearn. His mission is to make IB English as pain-free as possible with fun, practical lessons. Jackson scored an IB45 and was accepted to Harvard, Amherst, Williams Colleges, and full scholarships to University of Melbourne & Queensland.

What is a Paper 1 exam?

In a Paper 1 exam, you are given two mysterious, unseen texts . Each text is between 1-2 pages in length.

For SL students, you're in luck! Your task is to write a guided analysis on just one of the two texts. Total marks: 20. You have 1 hour and 15 minutes.

For HL students, you're in less luck… Your task is to write two guided analysis essays–one on each of the texts. Total marks: 40. You have 2 hours and 15 minutes.

The mystery text types you'll get for Paper 1 depend on whether you're in IB English Language & Literature or IB English Literature.

For IB English Literature , Paper 1 text types belong to four neat categories (hooray!):

• Fictional prose (e.g. short stories, extracts from novels)
• Non-fiction prose (e.g. scientific articles, extracts)
• Dramatic plays

For IB English Language and Literature , your text types could be… really… anything. Be prepared to be surprised. Typically, at least one of the text types will include some visual element like an image, photo, or cartoon. Here's the (non-exhaustive) list of Lang Lit text types:

• Magazines, blogs, articles and editorials
• Speeches, interview scripts, radio transcripts
• Instruction manuals, brochures
• Comic strips, political cartoons
• … and the list goes on…

What do I write in a guided analysis?

For each Paper 1 text, the IB English Gods pose a short, open-ended question.

This question is called the guiding question , and your essay must focus on answering this guiding question using analysis (we'll explain “analysis” in a second).

Examples of guiding questions:

• How does the writer characterize the protagonist's state of mind?
• How and to what effect do textual and visual elements shape meaning?
• How is narrative perspective used to create meaning and effect?

Even though you're technically allowed to choose your own focus and ignore the default guiding question, it's highly recommended that you go along with what's given… unless you really don't know how to answer it, or you're super confident in your Paper 1 skills.

Now, what are we supposed to do with the guiding question?

Guiding questions always ask you to explain how and why certain language or visual choices are used to build one or more central ideas .

And so the vague instruction "Answer the guiding question" actually translates to something very specific:

Explain  how and why the writer uses specific language to build their central idea(s).

This sentence pretty much sums up not just IB English Paper 1, but the gist of analysis and IB English overall.

Writing Deep, Insightful Analysis

If you want to get a high score on Paper 1 (and every IB English assessment in general), you must know how to write deep, insightful analysis.

After helping numerous IB English students at LitLearn, we've found that weak analysis is the #1 reason students struggle in IB English.

Biggest Mistake

The main mistake you're likely making is that your analysis doesn't dig deep enough .

Students make the mistake of only touching the surface-level meaning of the texts. For example, common mistakes include:

• only recounting the plot
• mentioning techniques and ideas without digging into the how and why
• not identifying the most relevant techniques for analysis.

The diagram below shows the difference between surface-level meaning, deep analysis, and deeper analysis.

If you're unsure about how to write strong analysis for IB English, or you're not confident in what to look for in your texts, then you should watch this free 7-minute video lesson from Learn Analysis: Analysis Foundations.

Learn Analysis

No sign up or credit card required.

Essential Techniques you need to know

So how do we write strong analysis that scores highly on Criterion B?

First things first, we need to know how to analyze the major literary and visual techniques (visual for Lang Lit), so that we can quickly find and analyze them under exam stress.

If you're cramming for Paper 1, here are the 7 most important techniques and concepts that you should know for IB English Paper 1. They apply to all text types in Lang Lit as well as Literature:

• Tone, atmosphere and mood
• Diction and voice
• Metaphor, simile, and personification
• The 4 main types of imagery
• The 3 types of irony
• Juxtaposition and contrast
• Grammatical and structural techniques

There's a bunch more, but these 7 categories make a great starting point. The first step is to learn their names and definitions, and flashcards are an excellent way to do this.

Of course, memorizing isn't enough. We also need to know the common effects and purposes behind each of these core techniques, so that we can build a mental library of the most common ways to deeply analyze each technique. If you don't study each technique in detail, it's much harder to invent deep analysis on-the-spot during an exam.

We go deep into each of the techniques in Learn Analysis . Here are just a couple of them to get you started.

Level 1 Techniques

Your One Mission in Paper 1

Let's quickly recap what you need to do in a Paper 1.

• You need to discuss the characters, themes and plot of a chosen  literary text, OR the visual and stylistic elements (diagrams, headings, titles, images) for a non-literary text.
• You then need to explain how and why these aspects were achieved by the writer or artist.

These two points are helpful as a basis for understanding, but they won't help you get concrete words onto the exam page. What we need now is a practical guide to writing an actual essay:

• Deciding on a good  thesis
• Choosing the right  points
• Choosing the right structure

A Practical Guide to Writing a Paper 1 essay

An IB English Paper 1 essay boils down to 3 separate parts:

• An introduction paragraph : contains a thesis and an outline of your points
• A body (usually 3 paragraphs) : contains your points
• A conclusion : wraps up the essay

Choosing a thesis

The thesis or subject statement is a single sentence in the introduction of the guided analysis that states how the writer achieves their overall purpose.

This is also the main argument that you are trying to prove in your essay, and it's typically related to the guiding question . The examiner can usually judge the strength of your analytical skills JUST from your subject statement alone, so it needs to be well-written!

Choosing the right essay structure for IB English Paper 1

Every text works best with a specific paragraph structure. Finding this match isn't always easy, but it's also one of the most important things to get right in your Paper 1 guided analysis.

You can organise your essay by:

• ideas or themes
• sections (sequential, e.g. stanza by stanza for poems)
• the ‘Big 5'
• and probably a whole host of other acronyms that English teachers love to invent.

Criterion C for IB English Paper 1 is Organisation . It's worth a whole 5/20 marks, so it's definitely in your best interest to choose the most appropriate structure for your essay.

Pro Tip: I recommend students to stay away from the Big 5 . Sure, it's useful as a memory device to tell you what elements to look for in a text, but it's not a good essay structure for analysis.

Why? Because analysis is about examining the causal interplay between techniques, stylistic choices, audience, tone, and themes. The Big 5 and SPECSLIMS artificially silo these components in your discussion.  Heed my advice or pay the price! (notice that rhyme?)

So in my opinion, there are only two types of structure that are most  conducive (yep, another new vocab, omnomnom) to getting a 7. Ideas/themes  and Sections . Take this as a hot tip and run with it. If your teacher is forcing you to use other structures, then you'll need to know why this is recommended.

We go into much more depth and explain it all inside Learn Analysis.

Pro members only

Writing body paragraphs: Why and How

Once you've chosen the best structure for your essay and decided on a strong thesis as your central argument, the rest of the essay needs to revolve around proving  this argument.

How do you prove this subject statement? You do it by looking at individual points. These smaller points support smaller, more specific aspects of the overall thesis.

The idea is that each body paragraph, or point, aims to prove a separate, smaller aspect of the bigger thesis. It's like a jigsaw puzzle : You must piece together smaller, more manageable pieces to build the bigger argument (i.e. the thesis).

In reality, this translates into writing 2, 3 or 4 points, each of which fits snuggly it its own paragraph or multiple paragraphs (depending on the complexity of the point).

In each point, you must include:

• Quotes, references to images, titles, headings, or visual elements. This is the evidence.
• Analysis of language and literary techniques.  Use specific quotes from the text and explain how and why they are used by the writer to shape his/her message.

Obviously, this is a quick summary of how to write a high-quality body paragraph. We dive deeper into the specific details of how to structure a body paragraph in the guided analysis.

Planning ahead

Ironically, the most important part of IB English Paper 1 is not the analysis itself (well it is, but not really). The part you have to get right the first time is the plan. Most students do not know how to plan effectively, or get flustered in the exam and don't plan, or don't even try to plan because they think they're above it. Big mistake!

Before you even begin writing, you should plan out your essay in sufficient detail. You will lose track of time, thought and sanity if you do not have a clear road map of every part of your essay before you begin writing.

You can learn how to annotate and plan quickly & efficiently using the flowchart method, which we demonstrate inside Learn Analysis and Paper 1 .

In the Pro lesson below, we go into detail on exactly how to plan a Paper 1 essay effectively and efficiently under exam conditions.

How do I practice for Paper 1?

Most students think that doing a lot of practice papers is the best way to improve in Paper 1. However, there's a much more efficient, targeted method to study for Paper 1.

We work our way up from the smallest, most manageable chunks of analysis to the full Paper 1 exam. It's a good idea to reserve real IB English past papers for 2 months before your final exam so that you don't run out of past papers--they are the best preparation for the final exam. Also, if your analysis skills aren't already strong, doing real past papers is a waste of an excellent exam prep resource.

Questionbank

Quote analysis exercises with exemplar IB7 solutions

Short guided analysis exercises with exemplar IB7 solutions

1 hour practice exams with detailed markschemes or video solutions

IB past paper solutions: Exemplar essay plans and full essay responses

Question​bank

Paper 1 Practice Exams

Past Paper 1 Solutions

Paper 2 Guide

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