Assessing the Extended Essay
From the Principal Examiner: Please note that while a global politics essay can deal with “Any question that deals with how power is distributed and how it operates within social organization, and how people think about, and engage in, their communities and the wider world on matters that affect their lives” it must be from a global perspective, and the focus of the essay must be the global political theory.
Overall Grade Boundaries
E: 0-6
D: 7-13
C: 14-20
B: 21-26
A: 27-34
Predicting Your EE Grade
When predicting your EE grade we will take very seriously each of the five criteria and the mark we believe you will score on each. As well, we will look closely at your total score and its correlation to the grade boundaries noted above. However, your predicted grade will ultimately be based on the A-E IB Grade Descriptors listed below.
EE Grade Descriptors-34-35.pdfExemplar Global Politics Extended Essays
HI Marks.pdfHI Grades.docxEU Marks.pdfEU Grades.docxGeneral Recommendations from the Global Politics Extended Essay Subject Report
A theoretical framework in global politics is mandatory. It is not possible to achieve good critical thinking without analysing theories and contrasting them with facts.
Students should be reminded that not everything is common knowledge - without references, some facts appear are unsubstantiated. Some other recommendations from the marking team are:
- More attention given to the choice of topic and research methods that are clearly linked to relevant concepts and issues in global politics, avoiding topics that require excessive contextualization in historical material.
- Clear identification and presentation of key terms and concepts, with explicit definitions of how they are understood and used in the essay.
- Explicit statements of research methods, with greater attention given to the criteria for selection of evidence and the assessment of reliability of sources, in particular with secondary sources.
- More systematic in-text referencing, more clearly to distinguish descriptive summary from the candidate ́s own interpretations and assessments.