IB command terms teaching should make the intellectual action behind each question visible. The topic tells students what to write about, while the command term tells them what kind of thinking to demonstrate. A knowledgeable response can still underperform if it describes when the question requires evaluation.
Effective teaching embeds command terms in explanations, modelling, practice and feedback throughout the course. Students need repeated opportunities to identify the task, produce the required evidence and improve responses using subject-specific guidance.
What IB command terms communicate
The IB defines a command term as the word or phrase indicating the assessment objective being addressed. Its assessment principles documentation explains that command terms indicate the type and depth of response expected.
Students must still read each term alongside:
- the content named in the question
- the marks available
- any stimulus, source, graph or dataset
- limits such as a specified period or case study
- the relevant criteria or markscheme
Many command terms have common meanings across IB subjects, but the current subject guide is authoritative for that course. The official Mathematics: analysis and approaches guide, for example, includes its own glossary. A generic poster should never override current subject-specific guidance.
Translate definitions into observable evidence
Knowing that evaluate means making an appraisal is not enough. Students must recognize what evaluation looks like on the page.
| Command term | Core demand | Visible evidence |
|---|---|---|
| State | Give a specific brief answer | A direct fact, value or name |
| Describe | Give a detailed account | Relevant features, stages or patterns |
| Explain | Give reasons or causes | Connected cause, mechanism and consequence |
| Compare | Refer to similarities between two or more items throughout | Paired points explicitly linking the items |
| Analyse | Break down to reveal structure or relationships | Identified components and interpreted relationships |
| Discuss | Give a considered, balanced review | Relevant arguments, evidence and a conclusion |
| Evaluate | Weigh strengths and limitations | Criteria, evidence, weighing and justified judgement |
| Justify | Give valid reasons or evidence | A supported position, choice or conclusion |
These are teaching translations rather than substitutes for official definitions. RevisionDojo's IB exam command terms list provides a useful overview, but teachers should confirm wording against the latest guide for the relevant subject and examination session.
Build command-term literacy into everyday lessons
Use command terms in classroom questions
Students should encounter command terms in starters, discussion, practical work and exit tickets, not only in tests. A history lesson might move from “State one cause” to “Explain how that cause increased instability” and then “Evaluate its importance relative to another cause.” The content remains connected while the cognitive action changes.
Teach question deconstruction
Before answering, students should identify:
- Command: What thinking must be demonstrated?
- Content: Which knowledge or concept is required?
- Scope: What boundaries, sources or contexts limit the answer?
- Scale: How much development is proportionate to the marks?
Marks help indicate expected depth, but “one mark equals one sentence” is not a universal IB rule. Marking approaches vary among subjects and question types.
Use the same content with different commands
Present several prompts about one familiar topic:
- State one consequence of rapid urbanization.
- Explain one consequence of rapid urbanization.
- Evaluate its significance for one city studied.
Ask students to plan what evidence each response needs before writing. This isolates command-term understanding from gaps in subject knowledge.
Model an incorrect answer
A polished descriptive response to an evaluation question can be highly instructive. Students can identify accurate content before marking the missing criteria, limitations, weighing and judgement. Rewriting one section shows that improvement may require a different relationship between ideas, not simply more detail.
Teach flexible answer shapes
An answer shape represents what a successful response must accomplish:
- Explain: claim, reason or mechanism, consequence, link
- Compare: paired feature, explicit similarity, relevant significance
- Analyse: component, relationship, interpretation, implication
- Evaluate: criteria, strengths, limitations, weighing, judgement
These shapes reduce cognitive load, particularly for multilingual learners, but should not become compulsory templates. Mathematical justification, literary analysis and economics evaluation express reasoning differently. Teachers should model how each discipline performs the common intellectual action.
The IB's Diploma Programme assessment overview also clarifies that achievement is judged against established standards rather than by ranking classmates.
Make feedback identify the missing action
Comments such as “add detail” are too general. Feedback should distinguish among:
- Content: Is the knowledge accurate and relevant?
- Command-term execution: Is the requested thinking performed?
- Communication: Is the reasoning visible and supported?
A precise comment might say: “Your advantages are accurate, but the response does not yet evaluate them. Establish a criterion, add a limitation and explain which consideration carries greater weight.”
During peer assessment, students can underline claims, box evidence, connect causes and consequences, and circle judgements. If the expected evidence cannot be located, the response may not perform the command clearly. RevisionDojo's guide to helping students understand IB markschemes explains how to connect these visible moves with marking evidence.
Plan progression and check transfer
Command-term mastery should develop from recognition to independent transfer. Early in a course, students may sort questions, match terms to definitions and annotate short models. Next, they should plan and complete responses with prompts such as “Where is the mechanism?” or “What criterion supports this judgement?” Later, remove those prompts and vary the topic, stimulus and mark allocation. This sequence prevents students from confusing familiarity with genuine control.
Check transfer through low-stakes tasks using unfamiliar content or a less familiar representation. For example, after teaching comparison through prose, ask students to compare two graphs, sources or experimental methods. If performance falls, reteach the underlying action rather than another rigid sentence frame. Students need to understand that comparison requires an explicit relationship; placing two separate descriptions beside each other leaves the comparison implicit.
Departmental calibration is equally important. Teachers can select one authentic question, agree on the essential command-term evidence and mark a small sample together. Discussion should focus on where reasoning becomes visible and which weaknesses concern knowledge, task fulfilment or communication. Recording one annotated exemplar and one near-miss gives colleagues a practical reference for future lessons. Repeating this process after major assessments keeps teaching aligned with the subject's current demands and reveals whether students can apply a command without teacher cues.
Establish a sustainable weekly routine
Command-term practice can be brief and regular:
- Monday: Deconstruct one question.
- Tuesday: Compare two terms using the same content.
- Wednesday: Annotate a model response.
- Thursday: Write for 5-8 minutes.
- Friday: Self-assess and rewrite one section.
Maintain a class record containing each official definition, a subject-specific example, successful features and a common error. Update it after authentic assessment practice rather than treating it as a static display.
Teachers can select targeted questions from the RevisionDojo Questionbank or build focused sets with Test Builder and Exam Mode. Practising the same command across changing topics, followed by feedback and another attempt, develops transfer. The teacher command-term preparation guide offers further routines.
Common mistakes teachers should avoid
- Treating terms as synonyms: Describe, explain and analyse may overlap in conversation, but they represent different assessment demands.
- Teaching a universal hierarchy: Difficulty also depends on the content, context, assessment objective and discipline.
- Using fixed writing formulas: Marks indicate scale but do not prescribe an exact number of sentences or paragraphs.
- Rewarding knowledge while overlooking the task: High credit for misdirected answers teaches students that the command is optional.
- Waiting until revision season: Late drills encourage memorized definitions rather than fluent disciplinary thinking.
Conclusion
Strong IB command terms teaching connects official definitions with visible evidence, subject conventions and repeated practice. Students should identify the command, content, scope and scale, then ensure that the requested thinking is visible to the marker.
RevisionDojo can support this routine through focused Questionbank sets, Test Builder practice and Jojo AI feedback. These tools work best when teachers continue checking tasks against current subject guides and applying professional judgement.
Sources and referenced URLs
- IB assessment principles and practices
- IB Mathematics: analysis and approaches guide
- IB Diploma Programme assessment overview
- RevisionDojo IB exam command terms list
- RevisionDojo guide to understanding IB markschemes
- RevisionDojo Questionbank
- RevisionDojo Test Builder and Exam Mode
- RevisionDojo teacher command-term preparation guide
