IB History SL Internal Assessment Example

You present a clear, focused, and evaluative research question.

You select two highly relevant sources that offer contrasting perspectives on the crisis.

You explain the usefulness of each source by linking its origin, purpose, and content to your question.

You show strong awareness of why source perspective matters when judging the blockade’s importance.

You discuss value and limitation rather than simply describing what each source says.

The evaluation would be even stronger if you pushed further into the exact evidential limits of each source.

Some limitations are explained well but could be tied more explicitly to how they affect the final judgement.

A few claims would benefit from more precise wording and deeper source-specific support.

Your investigation has a clear overall structure and a sustained focus on the question.

You use evidence from several relevant sources to support a comparative argument.

You move beyond description by weighing the blockade against fear of escalation and the secret diplomatic settlement.

You offer a reasoned conclusion that attempts to rank the significance of the different factors.

You show solid control of a multi-factor historical explanation rather than reducing the crisis to one simple cause.

At times the argument is more asserted than fully demonstrated, especially when explaining why one factor mattered more than another.

Some comparisons are not developed consistently, so competing interpretations are sometimes blended rather than sharply contrasted.

The conclusion needs tighter support from the body of the essay, especially where factor importance is ranked.

A few passages would be clearer if explanation and evaluation were separated more cleanly.

There are some presentation and phrasing issues that reduce polish.