Command term literacy is the ability to recognize an assessment instruction, understand the thinking it demands, and make that thinking visible in a response. Effective command term literacy strategies therefore go beyond displaying definitions. Teachers need to model each intellectual action, contrast easily confused terms, provide repeated low-stakes practice, and give feedback on how successfully students performed the command.
The IB describes command terms as words or phrases indicating what is required in a response, including its expected type and depth. However, students must interpret each term alongside the subject, question scope, stimulus, mark allocation, and current subject guide.
What command term literacy looks like
The content of a question identifies what students should write about. The command term identifies what they must do with that knowledge.
For example, a student may know several strengths and limitations of a scientific model. That knowledge becomes evaluation only when the student weighs those features and reaches a supported judgement. Similarly, listing factors is not analysis unless the response breaks the issue into meaningful parts and interprets their relationships.
Teachers should use the glossary in the current subject guide for the relevant examination session as the authoritative reference. The IB's assessment principles and practices explains the purpose of command terms, while individual guides identify the terms and assessment objectives applying to each course.
Teaching evaluate vs discuss vs analyse
Students frequently treat analyse, discuss, and evaluate as interchangeable invitations to write at length. They are related higher-order operations, but each directs attention towards a different outcome. The IB commonly uses the British spelling analyse, although students may encounter analyze elsewhere.
| Command term | Core intellectual action | Evidence in a successful response | Frequent error |
|---|---|---|---|
| Analyse | Break material down to reveal elements or relationships | Components, patterns, connections, implications, and interpretation | Describing parts without connecting them |
| Discuss | Provide a considered and balanced review | Relevant positions or factors, evidence, comparison, and a conclusion | Listing advantages and disadvantages |
| Evaluate | Appraise by weighing strengths and limitations | Appropriate criteria, explicit weighing, and a justified judgement | Identifying limitations without judging significance |
The official Mathematics: Analysis and Approaches guide illustrates an important qualification: subjects apply command terms through disciplinary conventions. A mathematical justification, historical evaluation, and literary analysis may share broad reasoning demands, but they require different forms of evidence.
Give each term a visible answer shape
An answer shape is a temporary scaffold, not a rigid essay formula. It shows students what must become visible on the page.
- Analyse: identify components, explain relationships, and interpret their significance.
- Discuss: examine a range of arguments or factors, test them with evidence, and reach a supported conclusion.
- Evaluate: establish criteria, examine strengths and limitations, weigh their importance, and deliver a justified judgement.
Students should eventually adapt these structures independently. Early consistency reduces the cognitive load involved in interpreting unfamiliar questions.
Six activities that build command term fluency
1. Same content, different command
Give students one familiar topic and three questions differing only in their command terms. Students plan each response, then annotate what must change in the evidence, organization, and conclusion. This isolates task interpretation from content recall.
2. Response sorting
Prepare short responses to the same topic, including description, analysis, discussion, and evaluation. Students match each response to its command and underline evidence for their decision. Require them to identify the intellectual action, since sophisticated vocabulary does not automatically create analysis.
3. Command term transformation
Ask students to transform a competent explanation into an evaluation while preserving accurate content. They must add criteria, limitations, weighting, and a judgement. This demonstrates that higher-demand responses reorganize knowledge rather than simply adding facts.
4. Criteria laboratory
Give groups the same evaluation prompt but different criteria, such as reliability, effectiveness, cost, ethics, or long-term significance. Compare the resulting judgements. Students learn that evaluation is not personal opinion: conclusions may vary, but each must be grounded in relevant disciplinary evidence.
5. Highlight the thinking
Students underline claims, box evidence, mark analytical connections, circle limitations, and highlight the final judgement. Missing markings reveal incomplete reasoning. Several facts with no judgement, for example, indicate knowledgeable description rather than completed evaluation. RevisionDojo's guide to what examiners want from command terms can support a consistent departmental annotation system.
6. Retrieval followed by application
Ask students to recall one command term definition, then immediately apply it to a miniature prompt. Recalling the wording does not prove that a student can execute the instruction. A systematic review of classroom retrieval practice supports purposeful, low-stakes retrieval, but retrieval should complement application and feedback.
Build command terms into normal teaching
Command term instruction works best throughout the course, not only during final revision. Use the terms in learning objectives, questioning, homework, peer review, and modelled responses, while keeping classroom usage consistent with the relevant guide.
A manageable cycle is:
- Decode: Circle the command term, underline the content, and box scope restrictions.
- Model: Think aloud while converting the question into a response plan.
- Practise: Complete a short response using familiar content.
- Diagnose: Separate content errors from command-term execution.
- Reattempt: Improve the response or answer a parallel question.
The RevisionDojo teacher preparation playbook and guide to building IB exam strategy lessons provide further routines for question deconstruction and timed practice.
Give feedback on the requested action
Comments such as “needs depth” or “be more analytical” are difficult to use. Feedback should identify the missing intellectual operation:
- “You identified three factors but did not show how they interact.”
- “Both perspectives are present, but the discussion needs an evidence-based conclusion.”
- “You listed limitations without weighing them against the strengths.”
- “Your explanation gives the outcome but not the causal mechanism.”
Separate issues into content, command-term execution, evidence, and communication. Students can then make one focused improvement rather than rewriting without understanding the problem. RevisionDojo's guide to actionable IB feedback develops this attempt, diagnosis, and reattempt cycle.
Common implementation mistakes
Do not teach command terms as a hierarchy in which a supposedly higher term always requires a longer response. Mark allocation, assessment component, and wording determine scale. A concise evaluation can outperform a lengthy response containing no explicit weighing.
Sentence starters are also not proof of thinking. Words such as “however” may organize contrast, but they do not create balance or evaluation by themselves. Departments should agree on shared core meanings while clarifying subject-specific evidence and conventions.
The RevisionDojo Questionbank can support targeted practice, but teachers should select questions matching the applicable syllabus and assessment context.
Conclusion
Strong command term literacy develops when students repeatedly decode questions, observe the requested thinking, practise with familiar content, and receive precise feedback. Analyse reveals parts and relationships, discuss constructs a considered review, and evaluate weighs evidence to reach a judgement.
RevisionDojo can support this cycle through targeted Questionbank practice and Jojo AI feedback. Use these tools after explicit teacher modelling, then require a comparable reattempt so that feedback produces a visible improvement.
Sources and referenced URLs
- IB Assessment principles and practices
- IB Mathematics: Analysis and Approaches guide
- Retrieval Practice Consistently Benefits Student Learning
- IB command terms and examiner expectations
- RevisionDojo command terms teacher preparation playbook
- RevisionDojo IB exam strategy lessons
- RevisionDojo guide to actionable IB feedback
- RevisionDojo Questionbank