MYP command terms are the instructional words used in questions, task sheets, objectives, and assessment criteria. Terms such as identify, explain, analyse, and evaluate tell students what kind of thinking and evidence a response must demonstrate.
Accurate subject knowledge is not always enough. A student who describes information when asked to analyse it may provide correct facts but fail to demonstrate the relationships and conclusions required by the assessment criterion. This guide explains the main terms, effective response structures, and their connection to classroom grading and MYP eAssessment.
What are MYP command terms?
The IB defines command terms as words and phrases indicating what students must do in response to a task. Each term represents an intellectual process, such as recalling information, applying a method, explaining causation, examining relationships, or making a supported judgment.
The subject content tells you what to discuss. The command term tells you what to do with that content. Compare these prompts:
- Identify one cause of urban migration.
- Explain one cause of urban migration.
- Analyse the relationship between urban migration and employment.
- Evaluate a policy intended to manage urban migration.
The first needs a brief answer. The second requires reasons, the third requires relationships and conclusions, and the fourth requires a criteria-based judgment. Although terms have shared meanings across the MYP, their application depends on the discipline. Analysing a poem involves authorial choices and effects, while analysing scientific data involves patterns, relationships, anomalies, and conclusions.
Essential MYP command terms and response patterns
Students should check the definitions and criteria in their current subject materials because not every term appears equally often in every subject.
| Command term | What it requires | Practical response pattern |
|---|---|---|
| Define | Give the precise meaning of a concept or quantity. | State the essential meaning accurately. |
| Identify | Recognize and state a relevant fact or feature. | Name it briefly without unnecessary explanation. |
| State | Give a specific name, value, or answer. | Respond directly and concisely. |
| Outline | Give a brief account or summary. | Present the main features logically. |
| Describe | Give a detailed account. | Provide relevant characteristics, stages, or observations. |
| Explain | Give reasons, causes, or mechanisms. | Connect a claim to why or how it occurs. |
| Compare | Give similarities between items, referring to each throughout. | Use paired points such as “Both X and Y...” |
| Compare and contrast | Give both similarities and differences. | Organize the response around shared comparison points. |
| Analyse | Break information down, reveal relationships, and reach conclusions. | Move from evidence to relationships, interpretation, and conclusion. |
| Evaluate | Assess implications and limitations using appropriate criteria. | Weigh evidence and reach a supported judgment. |
| Justify | Give valid reasons or evidence supporting a conclusion. | State the decision and defend it. |
| Interpret | Recognize trends and draw conclusions from information. | Explain what the information shows and what can be inferred. |
An easily missed distinction is that the official MYP meaning of compare focuses on similarities. If the task says compare and contrast, students must address both similarities and differences.
How command terms change an answer
Suppose a city introduces a congestion charge and traffic subsequently falls by 18 percent. A descriptive response reports the charge and decline. An explanatory response connects them by arguing that the increased cost discouraged driving and encouraged public transport use.
An evaluative response must go further. It could judge the policy effective according to traffic reduction but note that the figure does not prove the charge caused the entire decline. It might also consider affordability, emissions, public transport use, and longer-term traffic levels before reaching a qualified conclusion.
The evaluative answer is not simply longer. It performs additional intellectual work by selecting criteria, weighing evidence, recognizing limitations, and reaching a judgment.
How command terms connect to assessment criteria
MYP assessment is criterion-related. Work is judged against published criteria and level descriptors rather than ranked against classmates. Every subject group has four criteria, labelled A to D, although their names and assessed skills vary.
Each criterion has a maximum achievement level of 8. Teachers consider the available evidence and use a best-fit judgment to select the descriptor that most accurately represents the work. This is not necessarily a percentage calculation or a mechanical average of task scores.
Command terms make descriptors observable. If a descriptor requires analysis and justified conclusions, the response must visibly contain both. Additional facts cannot replace these actions.
- Criterion: the broad area of performance being assessed.
- Strand: a specific component within a criterion.
- Command term: the action students must demonstrate.
- Achievement level: the descriptor-based judgment, normally from 0 to 8.
- Final grade: the reported grade from 1 to 7 after conversion.
The RevisionDojo guide to MYP assessment criteria provides further subject context, while the guide to MYP rubric alignment explains how strands become visible evidence.
How classroom MYP grading works
For classroom reporting, the four criterion achievement levels are normally combined into a total out of 32.
| Criterion total | Final MYP grade |
|---|---|
| 1--5 | 1 |
| 6--9 | 2 |
| 10--14 | 3 |
| 15--18 | 4 |
| 19--23 | 5 |
| 24--27 | 6 |
| 28--32 | 7 |
For example, levels of 7, 6, 5, and 6 produce a total of 24 out of 32, corresponding to a final grade of 6 under these boundary guidelines. This does not mean the student earned 75 percent and then received a conventional letter grade. The four numbers are descriptor-based levels converted through MYP boundaries.
Command terms do not earn automatic marks. Instead, they clarify the evidence required by criteria and level descriptors. Schools should confirm their current reporting policy, especially when evidence is incomplete. See MYP grade boundaries and the 1--7 scale for more detail.
Command terms in MYP eAssessment
In MYP eAssessment, command terms still signal the expected response, but students must not apply the classroom 32-point table directly to an on-screen examination score. According to the IB overview of MYP assessment, on-screen examinations are externally marked, while applicable ePortfolios are internally marked and externally moderated.
For official results, the IB determines subject-specific boundaries for each assessment session. These use examination marks for on-screen assessments or criterion-level totals for ePortfolios, depending on the component. Therefore, a raw examination score of 24 is not automatically a grade 6 merely because 24 out of 32 falls within the classroom grade-6 range.
Assessment blueprints show how criteria are represented in eAssessment. Higher mark allocations generally allow students to demonstrate greater depth, but marks are only a depth signal. Students must still perform the exact action required by the command term.
A practical method for answering command terms
Use this routine before and after writing:
- Circle the command term. If there are two, address both.
- Underline the content focus. Identify the concept, source, text, period, or data set involved.
- Check qualifiers. Words such as “one,” “most significant,” and “with reference to the source” limit the response.
- Use marks as a depth signal. A one-mark identification should be concise; a higher-mark evaluation needs developed evidence and judgment.
- Translate the verb into success conditions. For analyse, think “parts, relationships, interpretation, conclusion.”
- Plan visible evidence. Decide where the explanation, comparison, justification, or judgment will appear.
- Check the completed response. Ask whether you performed the required action or stopped at a simpler one.
Students can apply this routine through targeted command-term practice. Jojo AI can help identify whether a paragraph is descriptive, explanatory, analytical, or evaluative, but feedback should always be checked against the current task rubric.
Common command-term mistakes
The most frequent error is answering the topic instead of the command term. A knowledgeable paragraph may remain incomplete if the question asks for evaluation but receives no criteria-based judgment.
Other common problems include:
- Writing separate mini-essays instead of making direct comparisons.
- Treating explain as a request for a longer description.
- Listing advantages and disadvantages without weighing them.
- Giving personal opinion without evidence when asked to justify.
- Assuming every high-mark answer must be long rather than purposeful.
- Using classroom boundaries to predict an external eAssessment grade.
Conclusion
MYP command terms specify the thinking and evidence an assessment response must show. Students should learn their official meanings, translate each term into a response structure, and review errors by both content and command. RevisionDojo Questionbank, Flashcards, Study Notes, and Jojo AI can support this practice alongside current subject materials and teacher-provided rubrics.