Paper Advice

The most important part of the essays for paper 2 (and 3 if you're HL) is discussing different perspectives. They aren't looking for a detailed account of what happened and all the facts tied to specific events. The focus mainly lies in causes, consequences, change, continuity etc. Looking at IB history command terms can give you a general impression of what kind of questions they ask. Like I said perspectives are important so your analysis should focus on these; in other words, things like the impact or importance of economic factors, political factors, social factors, technological development, international relations etc. are important to grasp and be able to discuss and assess the impact of. You also need evidence to back up your claims though so you won't score very highly with no "facts", only general statements. For instance if the question asks you to discuss the importance of foreign intervention in two civil wars, they don't want you to retell the course of the wars in question, but you won't get far by only saying intervention was important because it did this and this. You should provide some evidence for each of your point, so maybe in this case cite a battle where foreign involvement decided the outcome or talk about foreign brigades and their impact on the course of the war. Don't loose track of the question though, evidence/facts are only one component of your paragraphs, you have to analyze and answer the question in the best way possible at the same time

Looking at example essays, looking at the mark scheme and practicing is honestly the best way to get a feel for how much evidence and facts you need as you write

If you're HL do note that paper 3 topics are more in depth compared to paper 2 so the only real difference between them is that for paper 3 you write 3 essays and you're expected to show more detailed knowledge as you're asked more specific questions than for paper 2

and remember to provide different perspectives. It's not sufficient to only discuss economy for instance, if you think a factor/perspective is the most important include other perspectives and assess them and then draw your conclusions according to the question you're answering

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