IB Global Politics Tutoring, SL and HL
IB Global Politics studies events that are still unfolding, so there is no fixed body of facts to learn: students must apply concepts such as power, sovereignty, legitimacy and interdependence to cases they have researched themselves. Under the guide first assessed in 2026, a source-based paper tests the core and HL students sit a further paper on global political challenges.
Short answer
IB Global Politics is offered online, one-to-one.
A private lesson runs 90 minutes and starts at USD 95 per lesson; lessons are booked singly or in packages.
IB group classes are private groups of three or more friends, who agree the start date with us.
From USD 95 per lesson
- SL and HL assessment from the IB’s own subject brief
- Live online lessons of 90 minutes
- From USD 95 per lesson
How IB Global Politics is assessed
External papers set and marked by the IB, and an internal assessment marked by your teacher and moderated by the IB. Standard Level and Higher Level differ in length, weighting and, at HL, in the extra paper or component. Figures are from the IB’s own subject brief, linked below.
International Baccalaureate
IB Diploma Programme · Global Politics · subject brief, first assessment 2026
| Component | SL: weight and length | HL: weight and length | What it involves |
|---|---|---|---|
| Paper 1 | 30% · 1 hour 15 min | 20% · 1 hour 15 min | Source-based questions on the core, in an integrated way. |
| Paper 2 | 40% · 1 hour 30 min | 30% · 1 hour 30 min | Extended-response questions on the thematic studies. |
| Paper 3 (HL only) | HL only | 30% · 1 hour 30 min | Stimulus-based questions on the HL extension, global political challenges. |
| Internal assessment | 30% | 20% | Engagement project: a written report on a political issue explored through engagement and research. |
Checked on 24 September 2026
Paper names are the IB’s own. Internal assessment time is the teaching time the IB allocates to it, not an exam.
The IB Global Politics syllabus
Topic names are left in English, as they appear on the paper and in the mark scheme.
Core
Power · Sovereignty · Legitimacy · Interdependence
Thematic studies
Rights and justice · Development and sustainability · Peace and conflict
HL extension
Global political challenges
Where IB Global Politics marks are usually lost
Concepts named but never put to work
Students learn definitions of power, legitimacy or sovereignty, then write essays that mention them once in the introduction and never again. The course asks for concepts to be used as tools: whose power, exercised how, and judged legitimate by whom. An answer that keeps returning to the concept to explain a specific case, and to test where it breaks down, reaches the analysis the assessment objectives ask for.
Examples that are only headlines
Because the course is built on contemporary cases, students often cite an event in a single line: a summit, a protest, a set of sanctions. Examiners need to see what happened, which actors were involved and why it supports the argument. A smaller set of researched cases, known in detail and covering both states and non-state actors, works far better than a long list of passing references.
Sources read for content, not perspective
The source-based paper asks students to work with documents alongside their own examples. Many simply summarise what each source says. The assessment objectives ask students to analyse the claims and perspectives in source material, so a strong answer notes whose view a source represents, what it assumes, how it relates to the other sources, and how far it supports the point being made.
The IB Global Politics internal assessment
The internal assessment is the engagement project: a written report on a political issue that the student explores through engagement and research. The student engages with the issue directly and researches it more widely, then analyses it using the course’s concepts and a range of perspectives, and reflects on the process and results of that research rather than simply describing the experience. A tutor helps choose an issue that is genuinely political and realistic to engage with, plan research around it, and connect what the student observed to the ideas of the course in a clearly argued report.
A tutor can explain the criteria, question a draft and point to what is weak. The research, the writing and every decision in it stay the student’s own, as the awarding body’s rules require.
How we teach IB Global Politics
A tutor treats the core concepts as a toolkit used in every lesson, whatever the topic. Students build a case bank across the thematic studies — rights and justice, development and sustainability, peace and conflict — with cases from several regions, including Africa, and with state and non-state actors in each. Every case is summarised in a form that can go straight into an essay: actors, events, outcomes and the concepts it illustrates. Source questions are practised on unfamiliar documents, linking each source to an example the student knows. Extended responses are planned to answer the exact question and reach a judgement. HL students research their cases on global political challenges early, so they can compare them and handle stimulus-based questions with confidence.
There is no separate diagnostic, because there is no single test that stands in for two years of a school syllabus. The first lesson is the assessment: the tutor works through your recent marked work, past-paper questions from your own specification, and the units your school has already covered, and reads current level, gaps, exam technique and where school work stands. It is a normal paid lesson and it teaches as it assesses.
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IB prices
IB tutoring from USD 95 per 90-minute lesson. Compare lesson packages and included materials.
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