IB Economics IA: how to plan and write the three commentaries

The assessment criteria, per commentary

From the current economics guide (first assessment 2022), as set out in the Hachette Learning IA guidance.

Moderators do not read beyond 800 words in a commentary. The article itself, the cover page, diagram labels and references do not count towards the limit.

The rules that cost marks before you write a word

Each commentary must be based on a different unit of the syllabus: microeconomics, macroeconomics and the global economy. The introductory unit does not count as one of the three. Each article must come from a different news media source, and each must have been published no more than a year before the commentary is written. Breaking any of these loses marks under criterion F, and a missing commentary scores zero out of 14 and costs a further mark from F.

The nine key concepts are scarcity, choice, efficiency, equity, economic well-being, sustainability, change, interdependence and intervention. Use a different concept in each commentary. Teachers following the published guidance warn that repeating a concept can cost up to 3 marks under criterion D, and up to 6 if the same concept runs through all three.

Choose articles that report a decision or an event with economic consequences: a new tax, a subsidy change, a price cap, a trade agreement, an interest-rate move. Articles that only describe a situation, or that already contain the economist's analysis, leave you little to do.

How to plan one commentary (a worked outline)

Suppose a student finds a recent article reporting that a Gulf government has raised the price of regulated petrol. This is a planning outline, not a commentary: the analysis and the words must be the student's own.

1. Unit and concept. This is a microeconomics article (a government intervention in one market). The obvious concept is intervention; choose a different one, such as sustainability or equity, if intervention is already used in another commentary.
2. Key terms to define briefly in context: price ceiling or administered price, subsidy, price elasticity of demand, externality.
3. Diagram 1: the fuel market with the old regulated price below equilibrium and the subsidy cost shown. Diagram 2: the effect of the price rise, or a negative consumption externality diagram if the article mentions emissions or congestion.
4. Analysis: use price elasticity of demand to predict how much quantity falls in the short run (fuel demand is usually inelastic) and what happens to government spending on the subsidy.
5. Evaluation: weigh stakeholders (low-income drivers, taxi and delivery firms, the government budget, the environment), short run against long run, and the assumptions behind the diagram. End with a justified judgement that answers whether the policy is likely to achieve its aim.
6. Word budget: roughly 100 to 150 words of introduction and context, 150 to 200 explaining the diagrams, about 250 of analysis, and about 250 of evaluation, which keeps you under 800.

Common mistakes

• Diagrams copied from a textbook with generic labels. Label with the article's market and actors, and refer to every diagram in the text.
• Summarising the article. The examiner has the article; every sentence of yours should add economics.
• Evaluation squeezed into the last two lines. Criterion E is worth as much as criterion C; give it a quarter of your words.
• Naming the key concept in the introduction and never returning to it. The link has to be explained, ideally more than once.
• Going over 800 words. Anything after word 800 is not read, and it is usually the evaluation.
• Old articles or two articles from the same outlet, which lose rubric marks that are otherwise free.

How one-to-one lessons help with the IA

A tutor who teaches IB Economics helps at the stages where students stall: screening candidate articles against the rubric rules, choosing the unit and key concept for each, and drawing the right diagrams on the shared whiteboard until the student can explain each shift aloud. The tutor then gives feedback on the student's plan and drafts against criteria A to E, in the same way a teacher would.

The commentaries must be the student's own work, and schools limit how much feedback a draft can receive. A tutor does not write or edit the text; lessons build the economics so the student can write it well.