How to Get a 7 in IB History: Papers 1 to 3 and the IA

Quick answer

• Argue, don't narrate: open every essay with a direct answer to the question and make every paragraph prove part of it.
• In Paper 1, judge each source by who made it, when and why, not just by what it says.
• Plan every Paper 2 and Paper 3 essay for five minutes before writing; each essay is marked out of 15.
• Keep the historical investigation tight: a narrow question, two well-evaluated sources, and no more than 2,200 words.
• Practise with timed essays you mark against the markbands, not by rereading notes.

To get a 7 in IB History, write arguments rather than stories. Answer the exact question in your first paragraph, prove that answer with precise, dated evidence, weigh other views, judge sources by origin and purpose, and practise under timed conditions. That is what the IB's assessment objectives ask for: clear arguments and evaluated perspectives, not retold events.

This guide covers the current IB History course, the one assessed for the last time in 2027. If your exams are in 2026 or 2027, this is your course. There is a short note on the new course at the end.

How IB History is assessed (current course)

IB History has two exam papers at SL and three at HL, plus one internal assessment, and the weighting depends on your level. According to the IB's History subject page, you study one of five prescribed subjects, two of twelve world history topics and, at HL, one of four depth studies (Africa and the Middle East, the Americas, Asia and Oceania, or Europe).

Times and weightings come from the IB's subject briefs for SL and HL. The mark totals and the IA word limit come from the InThinking History pages for teachers on Paper 1, Paper 2, Paper 3 and the IA.

At SL, Paper 2 is almost half your grade. At HL, Papers 2 and 3 together make up 60%. Either way, the essay is the skill to train.

What examiners actually reward

The IB's assessment objectives tell you what the top marks are for. The HL subject brief asks students to "formulate clear and coherent arguments", to "evaluate different perspectives on historical issues and events, and integrate this evaluation effectively into a response", and to evaluate "sources as historical evidence, recognizing their value and limitations".

In plain terms, that is three habits:

1. An argument. A position that answers the question, held from the first paragraph to the last.
2. Evidence that does a job. Names, dates, figures and events used to prove a point, not to fill space.
3. Weighing. Showing where the evidence is weaker, where historians disagree, and why your judgement still stands.

A 7 needs all three. The command terms matter too: "compare and contrast", "examine" and "to what extent" each ask for a different kind of answer, and the IB exam technique guide explains how to read them.

Paper 1: treat sources as evidence

Paper 1 is marked out of 24, split across four questions according to InThinking: comprehension of sources (5 marks), the value and limitations of one source (4 marks), a comparison of two sources (6 marks), and a final essay-style answer that combines the sources with your own knowledge (9 marks).

You have one hour for 24 marks. Do not split the time strictly by marks: question 4 is an essay worth 9 marks, so give it extra. A sensible split is about 10 minutes on question 1, 8 on question 2, 12 on question 3 and the remaining 30 on question 4.

For the value and limitations question, start from where the source came from:

• Who made it, and when? A minister's speech in the week of a crisis shows how the government wanted the crisis seen at the time.
• Why was it made? A speech meant to rally the public is useful for official aims and limited as a record of what actually happened.
• What does the content add? Tie your point to a detail in the source, not a general comment that would fit any speech.

A weak answer says "it is biased". A strong one says what the bias makes the source good for, and what it makes it bad for. For the minister's speech, that could read: "Its value is that it was given by a minister during the crisis, so it shows the line the government wanted the public to accept at that moment. Its limitation is the same purpose: a speech meant to rally support will leave out doubts and failures, so it cannot show what ministers privately believed."

For the comparison question, make points that link both sources in the same sentence ("Both A and C blame the delegates, but only C names...") rather than describing one source and then the other.

Papers 2 and 3: plan the argument first

Each essay is marked out of 15 against generic markbands. Paper 2 gives you 90 minutes for two essays, so about 45 minutes each. Paper 3 gives you 150 minutes for three, so about 50 minutes each. Spend the first five minutes of each essay planning, and do not skip it when time feels short; an unplanned essay drifts into narrative.

A worked example: a Paper 2 essay plan

Here is a plan for a sample question printed in the IB's own SL subject brief: "Examine the impact of the US policy of containment on superpower relations between 1947 and 1964."

Thesis (first paragraph): Containment hardened superpower relations into open rivalry from 1947 to 1953 and pushed both sides to the brink in 1962, but the danger of the Cuban crisis then drove the first practical steps towards managing that rivalry.

Paragraph 1, division of Europe. The Truman Doctrine (March 1947) and the Marshall Plan (announced June 1947) turned containment into policy. The Soviet response, the Cominform and the Molotov Plan, split Europe into two economic blocs. Link back: containment made the division permanent.

Paragraph 2, crisis and alliances. The Berlin Blockade (1948 to 1949) tested containment directly; the airlift and the founding of NATO in 1949 showed the US would defend western Europe by force. Link back: relations moved from suspicion to military confrontation.

Paragraph 3, containment goes global. The Korean War (1950 to 1953) extended containment to Asia and made it a shooting war. Link back: the impact was not just European, and that matters for "superpower relations".

Paragraph 4, the brink and after. The Cuban Missile Crisis (October 1962) followed from rival bases and missiles on both sides. Afterwards came the hotline and the Partial Test Ban Treaty in 1963. Link back: containment created the crisis, yet the crisis produced the first limits on the rivalry.

Weighing (inside paragraphs, not tacked on). Historians disagree about how far containment caused Soviet hostility rather than responded to it: orthodox historians blamed Soviet expansion, revisionists such as William Appleman Williams stressed American economic aims, and post-revisionists such as John Lewis Gaddis spread the responsibility. Say where you stand, and why, in one or two sentences.

Conclusion. Answer the question again, more sharply than in the introduction: containment's main impact was to lock in rivalry, and its later effect was to make both sides look for ways to stop that rivalry becoming war.

Every paragraph proves part of the thesis, every date has a job, and the evaluation sits inside the argument.

Building essay material that holds up

For each of your two world history topics (and each HL section), keep a one-page sheet per case study: five to eight key events with dates, two or three arguments you could make, and one disagreement between historians. Paper 2 often asks you to compare examples from different regions, so choose case studies that pair well.

How to revise IB History so it sticks

The research is clear that testing yourself beats rereading. In Roediger and Karpicke's 2006 study in Psychological Science, students who took recall tests on prose passages remembered substantially more two days and a week later than students who reread them, even though rereading made them feel more confident. A large review by Dunlosky and colleagues (2013) rated practice testing and distributed practice as high utility, and rereading and highlighting as low utility.

For History, that translates into three routines:

• Blank-page recall. Close your notes and write everything you can about one case study: dates, causes, effects, the historians' debate. Then check and fill gaps. More on this in our active recall guide.
• Timed essays. Write one full essay a week from autumn of Year 2 and more from January, under real timings. How to use past papers covers the method.
• Honest marking. Mark each essay against the markbands and ask one question: did every paragraph argue, or did some just describe?

This is where History gets heavy: two world history topics, a prescribed subject and, at HL, a whole region to track, plus timed essays to write and mark yourself every week. Root Tutor is an AI tutor and study system, built for the IB by an IB student, that organises each class into units, each holding its own topics, notes, files and tutor chats. Its Test prep mode builds practice papers in your exam's style from your own topics, marks them like an examiner against a mark scheme, and then tells you your strengths, what needs work and what to study next. Revision mode checks what you still remember, one question at a time, and sorts each topic into Remembered, Shaky or Not yet. Here is everything Root does, and if it sounds useful you can use it free, no card needed.

The historical investigation (IA)

The IA is your own research into a question you choose. InThinking's IA page sets out the rules: no more than 2,200 words, consistent referencing and a bibliography, and three sections.

Three habits make the IA easier:

1. Narrow the question. "To what extent did the Berlin airlift strengthen US commitment to western Europe, 1948 to 1949?" is answerable in 2,200 words. "What caused the Cold War?" is not.
2. Pick sources you can evaluate. You need two sources where origin and purpose genuinely shape what they can tell you.
3. Make the reflection specific. Name a real problem you hit, such as two sources disagreeing on a figure, and say what it taught you about how historians work.

Your teacher can give feedback on one draft, so make that draft complete. The IB internal assessment tips guide covers planning and deadlines across subjects.

Mistakes that cost the most marks

• Writing an introduction that says what you "will explore" instead of stating your answer.
• Bolting one sentence of evaluation onto the end of an essay.
• At HL, running out of time on the third Paper 3 essay. Practise 50-minute essays until the timing is automatic.

A note on the new course (first assessment 2028)

The IB's subject page now links a brief for a new History course with first assessment in 2028. It replaces prescribed subjects, world history topics and depth studies with focused studies, a thematic study and an HL regional study. In that brief, Paper 1 becomes 1 hour 15 minutes, Paper 2 becomes 1 hour 45 minutes (one question on historical concepts, then a short response and an essay on your thematic study), HL Paper 3 becomes 2 hours, and the IA is worth 30% at SL.

The essay habits in this guide carry across both courses. For the habits that work in every subject, read how to get a 7 in IB, and use the IB revision timetable guide to fit History around your other five subjects.