IB ECONOMICS

INTERNAL ASSESSMENT BOOKLET

(HL and SL)

(First Assessment 2022)

Department of Humanities

Sailaja Prasad
Economics Facilitators
Upama C
Ms. Sailaja Prasad & Ms. Meena Malik

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 Internal assessment
Purpose of internal assessment

Internal assessment is an integral part of the course and is

compulsory for both SL and HL students. It enables students to
demonstrate the application of their skills and knowledge, and to
pursue their personal interests, without the time limitations and
other constraints that are associated with written examinations.
The internal assessment should, as far as possible, be woven into
normal classroom teaching and not be a separate activity conducted
after a course has been taught.

The internal assessment requirements at SL and at HL are the same

for the economics course. Both SL and HL economics students
produce a portfolio of three commentaries based on articles from
published news media.

Guidance and authenticity

The portfolio submitted for internal assessment must be the

student’s own work. However, it is not the intention that students
should decide on the appropriate articles and then be left to work
on the internally assessed component without any further support
from the teacher. The teacher should play an important role during
both the planning stage and the period when the student is working
on the internally assessed work. It is the responsibility of the
teacher to ensure that students are familiar with:

• the requirements of the type of work to be internally

assessed—the nature of the sources of the articles, and the
formal requirements of the portfolio—and the IB’s academic
honesty policy
• the assessment criteria; students must understand that the
work submitted for assessment must address these criteria
effectively.

Teachers and students must discuss the internally assessed work.

Students should be encouraged to initiate discussions with the
teacher to obtain advice and information, and students must not be

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penalized for seeking guidance. As part of the learning process,
teachers should read and give advice to students on one draft of the
work. The teacher should provide oral or written advice on how the
work could be improved but must not edit the draft. The next
version handed to the teacher must be the final version for
submission.

It is the responsibility of teachers to ensure that all students

understand the basic meaning and significance of concepts that
relate to academic honesty, especially authenticity and intellectual
property. Teachers must ensure that all student work for
assessment is prepared according to the requirements and must
explain clearly to students that the internally assessed work must
be entirely their own. Where collaboration between students is
permitted, it must be clear to all students what the difference is
between collaboration and collusion.

All work submitted to the IB for moderation or assessment must be

authenticated by a teacher and must not include any known
instances of suspected or confirmed malpractice. Each student
must confirm that the work is his or her authentic work and
constitutes the final version of that work. Once a student has
officially submitted the final version of the work it cannot be
retracted. The requirement to confirm the authenticity of work
applies to the work of all students, not just the sample work that
will be submitted to the IB for the purpose of moderation. For
further details refer to the IB publication Academic honesty in the
IB educational context, The Diploma Programme: From principles
into practice and the relevant articles in General regulations:
Diploma Programme.

Authenticity may be checked by discussion with the student on the

content of the work and scrutiny of one or more of the following:

• the student’s initial choice of articles

• the first draft of the written work
• the references cited
• the style of writing compared with work known to be that of
the student

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 • the analysis of the work by a web-based plagiarism detection
service (for example, turnitin.com.)

The same piece of work cannot be submitted to meet the

requirements of both the internal assessment and the EE.

Time allocation

Internal assessment is an integral part of the economics course,

contributing 30% to the final assessment in the SL course and 20% to
the final assessment in the HL course. This weighting should be
reflected in the time that is allocated to teaching the knowledge,
skills and understanding required to undertake the work, as well as
the total time allocated to carry out the work.

It is recommended that a total of approximately 20 hours should be

allocated to the portfolio at both SL and HL. This should include:

• time for the teacher to explain to students the requirements

of the internal assessment
• class time for students to work on the internal assessment
component
• time for consultation between the teacher and each student
• time to review and monitor progress and to check
authenticity.

Requirements and recommendations

It is important for the integrity of the moderation process that the

internal assessment by the teacher is based on the same evidence
as that available to the moderator. When there is more than one
teacher teaching students in this component, internal
standardization must take place.

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 Using assessment criteria for internal
assessment
For internal assessment, a number of assessment criteria have been
identified. Each assessment criterion has level descriptors
describing specific achievement levels, together with an appropriate
range of marks. The level descriptors concentrate on positive
achievement although, for the lower levels, failure to achieve may
be included in the description.

Teachers must judge the internally assessed work at SL and at HL

against the criteria using the level descriptors.

• The same assessment criteria are provided for SL and HL.

• The aim is to find, for each criterion, the descriptor that
conveys most accurately the level attained by the student,
using the best-fit model. A best-fit approach means that
compensation should be made when a piece of work matches
different aspects of a criterion at different levels. The mark
awarded should be one that most fairly reflects the balance of
achievement against the criterion. It is not necessary for every
single aspect of a level descriptor to be met for that mark to
be awarded.
• When assessing a student’s work, teachers should read the
level descriptors for each criterion until they reach a
descriptor that most appropriately describes the level of the
work being assessed. If a piece of work seems to fall between
two descriptors, both descriptors should be read again and the
one that more appropriately describes the student’s work
should be chosen.
• Where there are two or more marks available within a level,
teachers should award the upper marks if the student’s work
demonstrates the qualities described to a great extent; the
work may be close to achieving marks in the level above.
Teachers should award the lower marks if the student’s work
demonstrates the qualities described to a lesser extent; the
work may be close to achieving marks in the level below.
• Only whole numbers should be recorded; partial marks
(fractions and decimals) are not acceptable.

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• Teachers should not think in terms of a pass or fail boundary
but should concentrate on identifying the appropriate
descriptor for each assessment criterion.
• The highest-level descriptors do not imply faultless
performance but should be achievable by a student. Teachers
should not hesitate to use the extremes if they are appropriate
descriptions of the work being assessed.
• A student who attains a high achievement level in relation to
one criterion will not necessarily attain high achievement
levels in relation to the other criteria. Similarly, a student who
attains a low achievement level for one criterion will not
necessarily attain low achievement levels for the other
criteria. Teachers should not assume that the overall
assessment of the students will produce any particular
distribution of marks.
• It is recommended that the assessment criteria be made
available to students.

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 Internal assessment details—SL and HL
Portfolio

Duration: 20 hours

Weighting: 30% (SL), 20% (HL)

Rationale

Internal assessment in economics enables students to demonstrate

the application of their knowledge and understanding of economic
theory in relation to real-world situations.

Requirements

Both SL and HL economics students produce a portfolio of three

commentaries based on articles from published news media. Each
article must be based on a different unit of the syllabus (excluding
Unit 1: Introduction to economics): Unit 2: Microeconomics, Unit 3:
Macroeconomics and Unit 4: The global economy.

Articles

The articles may be from a newspaper, a journal or the internet, but

must not be from television or radio broadcasts. If a student
includes a relatively lengthy article, which is discouraged, the
student must highlight the section(s) of the article upon which the
commentary is based. Articles used must have been published no
earlier than one year before the writing of the commentary.

The article on which the commentary is based should, where

possible, be in the same language as the commentary. If an extract
in another language is used, the student must provide an accurate
translation of the whole article. Students must also include the
original article in their portfolio.

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Individual work

Students must select their own articles to discuss. It may happen

that more than one student bases his or her commentary on the
same article, but the article must not be given to the class by the
teacher, and the production of the commentary must be each
student’s individual work. A commentary must not be prepared
collaboratively.

Key concepts

Each of the three commentaries must use a different key concept

as a lens through which to analyse the published extracts. Students
will risk losing 3 marks in criterion D if they use the same key
concept in two commentaries and up to 6 marks if the same key
concept is used in three commentaries. Please refer to the
Economics teacher support material for further guidance.

Focus

Each commentary must:

• explain the links between the article, a key concept and

economic theory taken from the unit of the syllabus on which
the article is based
• demonstrate economic insights into the implications of the
article (that is, it should provide evidence of the student’s
ability to discuss current events from the point of view of an
economist).

On each commentary students must record:

• the title of the article

• the source of the article (including date of access to the site if
from the internet)
• the date the article was published
• the date the commentary was written
• the word count of the commentary
• the unit of the syllabus to which the article relates
• the key concept being used

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Each commentary in the portfolio is assessed individually against
the internal assessment criteria. The teacher will initially assess
each student’s work. Please note that internal standardization must
take place if more than one teacher is assessing the work. A sample
of the work will then be moderated by the IB.

Word limit

Students must produce a portfolio of three commentaries. Each

commentary must not exceed 800 words.

Note: Moderators will not read beyond 800 words for each
commentary.

The following are not included in the word count.

• Acknowledgments
• Contents page
• Diagrams
• Labels—of five words or fewer
• Headings on diagrams—of 10 words or fewer
• Tables of statistical data
• Equations, formulae and calculations
• Citations (which, if used, must be in the body of the
commentary)
• References (which, if used, must be in the
footnotes/endnotes)

Please note that footnotes/endnotes may be used for referencing

purposes only. Definitions of economic terms and quotations, if
used, must be in the body of the work and are included in the word
count. Please note that a citation is a shorthand method of making
a reference in the body of the commentary, which is then linked to
the full reference in the footnotes/endnotes.

Rubric requirements

If students do not adhere to the following requirements, they can

lose marks under criterion F: Rubric requirements.

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1. Articles

Each article must be based on a different unit of the syllabus

(excluding Unit 1: Introduction to economics).

2. Sources

Students must use a different source for each commentary.

3. Contemporary articles

Students need to look for articles relating to current events, and

these must be published no earlier than one year before the
writing of the commentary.

Internal assessment criteria—SL and HL

Overview

There are five internal assessment criteria for each commentary.

Each commentary is assessed individually for the first five

assessment criteria (criteria A–E) and then criterion F is applied to
the whole portfolio.

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The maximum for the portfolio is 45 marks: (14 marks x 3
commentaries) + 3 marks = 42 + 3 marks. The assessment criteria are
related to the assessment objectives.

• Criterion A: AO2 and AO4

• Criterion B: AO1
• Criterion C: AO2
• Criterion D: AO2
• Criterion E: AO3
• Criterion F: AO4

Economics internal assessment portfolio (SL/HL)

This criterion assesses the extent to which the student is able to

construct and explain diagrams.

Criterion A: Diagrams

Criterion B: Terminology

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Criterion C: Application and analysis

This criterion assesses the extent to which the student recognizes,

understands, applies and analyses economic theory in the context
of the article.

Criterion D: Key concept

This criterion assesses the extent to which the student recognizes,

understands and links a key concept to the article.

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Criterion E: Evaluation

This criterion assesses the extent to which the student’s judgments

are supported by reasoned argument.

Criterion F: Rubric requirements

This criterion assesses the extent to which the student meets the
three rubric requirements for the complete portfolio.

• Each article is based on a different unit of the syllabus.

• Each article is taken from a different and appropriate source.
• Each article was published no earlier than one year before the
writing of the commentary.

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