IB Group 3 · Individuals and Societies
History
2028 syllabus · First assessment 2028
A skills-and-choice course. These notes are the universal spine: the four historical concepts, the three signature skills, and how each paper and the IA are assessed. Add modules for the specific topics your school teaches.
C. Historical concepts
The four specified concepts that focus every inquiry: cause and consequence, continuity and change, perspectives, and significance. Apply these to whatever content your school teaches.
CAUSE — Cause and consequence
What cause and consequence means — The interplay of multiple reasons for and results of events: actors and conditions, short and long term, and why nothing was inevitable.
Analysing causes and consequences — The questions the concept prompts: underlying versus trigger, relative weighting, actors versus conditions, and intended versus unintended results.
In the exam, and common pitfalls — How causation is tested in Paper 2 and essays, its link to source skills, and the errors that turn analysis back into narrative.
CHANGE — Continuity and change
What continuity and change means — Societies becoming different while staying the same: interwoven processes, both rapid and gradual, experienced as positive, negative or both.
Using continuity and change in analysis — Judging pace, degree and turning points, deploying it in Paper 2 and essays, and avoiding the assumption that all change is progress.
PERSP — Perspectives
What perspectives means — Diverse points of view from and about the past: contemporary and retrospective, not all equally valid, sometimes corroborating and sometimes contradictory.
Using perspectives in analysis — Weighing whose view and how valid it is, its central place in source work, and why treating every perspective as equally true is a mistake.
SIGNIF — Significance
What significance means — Value judgements about which people and events matter: constructed, shaped by evidence and values, and not limited to the powerful.
Using significance in analysis — Significant to whom and by what criteria, at the time versus in hindsight, deploying it in Paper 2, and avoiding fame-equals-significance.
S. Historical skills (by paper)
The three signature skills, one per exam: using sources (Paper 1), making connections (Paper 2) and evaluating arguments (Paper 3, HL). These transfer to any topic.
SOURCES — Using sources (Paper 1)
Sources and the Paper 1 setup — Primary and secondary sources, the single framing inquiry question, and the static three-question format.
Reading and evaluating a source (OPCVL) — Origin, purpose, content, value and limitation, and why a source's context shapes how it can be used.
Cross-referencing and perspectives — Corroborating and contrasting sources against each other, and examining the perspectives across a source set.
The Paper 1 questions and a worked routine — What each of the three static questions asks, plus a compact routine for evaluating any source.
CONNECT — Making connections (Paper 2)
Making connections and the Paper 2 setup — What connecting across a thematic study means, and how Section A and Section B are structured.
The four historical concepts — Cause and consequence, continuity and change, perspectives and significance as tools to structure an argument.
Building the comparative essay — A strong thesis, detailed examples across regions, explicit connections, and a balanced argument.
ARGUE — Evaluating arguments (Paper 3, HL)
Evaluating arguments and the Paper 3 setup — HL only: the regional study, the two-essay evaluative paper, and what evaluating historians' arguments means.
The anatomy of an argument — Identifying a claim, its evidence and its assumptions, and setting competing interpretations against each other.
The evaluative essay — Weighing an argument's strengths against its limitations to reach a substantiated judgement.
E. Assessment and the internal assessment
How the four inquiry contexts are examined across Paper 1, Paper 2, Paper 3 (HL) and the historical investigation, with essay, source and IA technique.
PAPERS — The exam papers
Paper 1: the source-based paper — The focused study, tested through three sources and three fixed source-based questions.
Paper 2: the thematic essay paper — Historical concepts and the thematic study, in a concept analysis plus a cross-regional essay.
Paper 3: the regional study (HL only) — Two evaluative essays on the regional study. HL students only.
Assessment objectives and exam technique — How AO1, AO2 and AO3 run across the papers, and general essay and timing technique.
HISTIA — The historical investigation (IA)
What the investigation is — Purpose, format, weighting, word limit and the three-section structure of the IA.
Topic and inquiry question (Section 1) — Choosing a topic and formulating a focused, conceptual inquiry question. Criterion A.
Sources and perspectives (Section 2) — Selecting up to seven sources that give diverse perspectives on the question. Criterion B.
Synthesis and evaluation (Section 3) — Synthesising evidence and evaluating sources to reach a reasoned judgement. Criterion C.
How it is marked — The three criteria, best-fit marking, and the drafting and academic integrity rules.
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