IB World Religions 8.2.2. Meeting Criteria A-D: What Examiners Reward Notes

8.2.2. Meeting Criteria A-D: What Examiners Reward

The mark allocation

1. The investigative study is marked out of 30, divided unevenly across five criteria, and the division itself tells a student where the effort belongs.
2. Criterion A, rationale and preliminary research, is worth 8 marks. Criterion B, plan for study, is worth 3.
3. Criterion C, summary of significant findings, is worth 6. Criterion D, critical reflection and evaluation, is worth 10, and criterion E covers format and references for the remaining 3.
4. Eighteen of the thirty marks therefore sit in A and D, the two criteria that ask for judgment rather than for reporting.
5. The work is marked by the teacher against these criteria and then moderated by the IB, so the published descriptors rather than a local house style decide the mark.
6. Each criterion is marked on a best-fit basis. The marker looks for the band the work as a whole most resembles, rather than demanding that every phrase of a descriptor be satisfied.
7. The criteria carry the assessment objectives between them. AO1 runs through A and D, AO2 and AO3 through A, C and D, and AO4 through B and E.

Rationale and preliminary research

1. Criterion A is worth 8 marks, and almost all of it is earned before the visit or interview ever happens.
2. It asks for four things: a rationale, a focus expressed as a question, a justified range of sources, and supporting evidence that has been analysed rather than merely listed.
3. The rationale explains why this study was worth doing. Personal interest is allowed and often genuine, but on its own it is thin, and the strongest rationales also name the gap in understanding the study is meant to fill.
4. Preliminary research is the reading done first, and it is what turns a curiosity into an academic question. It also gives a student the vocabulary to ask an adherent something worth answering.
5. The range of sources has to be justified, not merely wide. Saying why a particular scholarly account, community publication or interviewee was chosen is what converts a list into a mark.
6. Evidence counts as analysed when the study shows what the reading established, where two sources disagreed, and what was still unsettled when fieldwork began.
7. The top band describes a thoroughly researched study using a wide range of sources, with excellent supporting evidence and a clear, well developed rationale.

Plan for study

1. Criterion B is worth 3 marks. It is the cheapest criterion to secure and the easiest to throw away.
2. It asks for three things: a clearly stated and narrowly focused research question, the scope of the investigation, and a plan for carrying it out.
3. Narrow focus is most of the work. A question about what Shabbat means to Jews is too broad to answer, while a question about how one Reform family in Manchester keeps Shabbat fits inside 1,800 words.
4. Scope states the limits out loud: which group, which place, which occasion, how many people, over what period.
5. The plan is the sequence of steps. It says what would be read, who would be approached, what would be observed, what would be asked, and in what order.
6. The top band rewards the relationship between the three. Question, scope and plan should be appropriate, focused and closely related, so that the plan visibly answers the question it is attached to.
7. Because criterion B is assessed under AO4, it is a mark for organizing an investigation rather than for knowing a religion, and it can be earned in full before any fieldwork begins.

Summary of significant findings

1. Criterion C is worth 6 marks and covers the third heading, where the study reports what the investigation actually produced.
2. The word carrying the weight is significant. This section is a selection rather than a diary, and a finding earns its place by bearing on the research question.
3. Findings must be identified and outlined from what the student did, whether that was observation, interview, participation, or the study of a range of sources.
4. They must then be explained in relation to the research question, which means saying what each finding tells the student about the thing they set out to learn.
5. The criterion also asks for the rationale and plan to be discussed against the findings, so a reader can see whether the investigation delivered what it promised.
6. Direct evidence is what makes the section convincing. A short quotation from an interviewee, a detail of an observed rite or a described artifact does more than a paragraph of summary.
7. The top band wants findings clearly stated and well developed, with the relationship between rationale, plan and findings fully demonstrated.

Criterion D's four demands

1. Criterion D is worth 10 marks. That is a third of the internal assessment, and more than criteria B, C and E put together.
2. Its first demand is critical reflection on the findings in relation to the research question, which means judging how far the question was really answered.
3. Its second is a statement of how the study has deepened the student's understanding of the religious experience, practice or belief investigated.
4. Its third is the identification of misconceptions and inconsistencies, whether in the student's own starting assumptions or inside the material gathered.
5. Its fourth is an assessment of the degree of success of the study, together with proposals for future research that the findings themselves suggest.
6. The top band of 9 to 10 marks asks for detailed, very well developed reflection showing sophisticated understanding, a thorough evaluation of methods, recognition of assumptions and bias, and conclusions that point somewhere further.
7. None of this can be drafted in advance. Criterion D depends entirely on what the investigation actually turned up, which is why the craft of writing it is treated separately.