IB History Tutoring, SL and HL
IB History rewards argument, not narrative: an essay that tells the story of a war accurately but never weighs one explanation against another earns little credit, because the questions ask for analysis and judgement. It is also a subject in transition, with students finishing in May 2027 on one guide and those who began the Diploma in 2026 on a new one first examined in 2028.
Short answer
IB History 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 History is assessed
Two subject guides are in use at once. Students finishing the Diploma in May 2027 sit the older guide; students who started in 2026 sit the new one, first examined in May 2028. Both are set out below — read the one for your exam year.
Guide for students sitting their final exams in 2027
IB Diploma Programme · History · subject brief, first assessment 2017
| Component | SL: weight and length | HL: weight and length | What it involves |
|---|---|---|---|
| Paper 1 | 30% · 1 hour | 20% · 1 hour | Source-based paper on the five prescribed subjects. |
| Paper 2 | 45% · 1 hour 30 min | 25% · 1 hour 30 min | Essay paper on the 12 world history topics. |
| Paper 3 (HL only) | HL only | 35% · 2 hours 30 min | Essay paper on one of the four regional options. |
| Internal assessment | 25% · 20 hours | 20% · 20 hours | Historical investigation into a topic of the student’s choice. |
Checked on 24 September 2026
New guide, first exams May 2028 (students who started the Diploma in 2026)
IB Diploma Programme · History · subject brief, first assessment 2028
| 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 assessment on one of five focused studies, linked by an overarching inquiry question. |
| Paper 2 | 40% · 1 hour 45 min | 25% · 1 hour 45 min | Section A on the specified concepts; Section B on one thematic study, with a short response and an essay. |
| Paper 3 (HL only) | HL only | 35% · 2 hours | Two essays from different regional studies within one region. |
| Internal assessment | 30% · 20 hours | 20% · 20 hours | Historical investigation: the student formulates an inquiry question, selects and evaluates sources and produces a response. |
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 History syllabus
Topic names are left in English, as they appear on the paper and in the mark scheme.
Current guide (exams to 2027)
Prescribed subjects: military leaders; conquest and its impact; the move to global war; rights and protest; conflict and intervention · 12 world history topics · HL regional options: Africa and the Middle East; the Americas; Asia and Oceania; Europe
New guide (exams from 2028)
Five focused studies · Specified concepts and four thematic studies · HL regional studies within four regions
Where IB History marks are usually lost
Narrating instead of arguing
Students who know a period well often write chronological accounts: what happened, then what happened next. The IB’s sample essay questions ask “to what extent” a claim holds or a factor mattered most, and the course expects focused essays that answer that question in every paragraph. A paragraph that adds detail without saying why it matters to the question earns little, however accurate the facts are.
Evaluating sources by formula
Source questions ask about the value and limitations of documents, and under the new guide about how a source’s context shapes its use. Many students fall back on stock lines — “the author may be biased”, “it is only one source” — that would fit any document. Credit goes to evaluation tied to this source: who produced it, when, for whom and why, and what that means for the question.
Quoting historians instead of using them
Students often hear that historians’ views will lift a mark, and the result is a name and a quotation dropped into a paragraph, unconnected to the argument. Both guides reward the evaluation of different perspectives: why two historians disagree, what evidence each relies on, and which reading the student finds more convincing for the question asked. A perspective that is only cited adds nothing to the argument.
The IB History internal assessment
The internal assessment is a historical investigation into a topic the student chooses, and the guide decides its shape. Under the guide examined until 2027, it draws on skills named in the assessment objectives: formulating a focused question, evaluating sources as historical evidence and reflecting on the methods used by, and the challenges facing, the historian. Under the guide first examined in 2028, it has three sections: formulating an inquiry question, analysing the chosen sources, and synthesising evidence from them into a response. A tutor helps narrow a topic until the question can be answered with sources the student can actually reach, and explains what each criterion rewards.
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 History
A tutor starts by confirming which guide the student is on, because the two year groups now study different structures: prescribed subjects, world history topics and regional options for exams in 2027; focused studies, thematic studies, specified concepts and regional studies for exams from 2028. Content is then taught around the questions the papers ask rather than as a timeline. Each topic gets a short set of arguments with evidence, examples from more than one region and the main lines of historical debate. Source work is practised on unfamiliar documents every week. Essays are planned against the clock and rewritten after feedback, with the thesis checked against the exact wording of the question. Students taking Africa and the Middle East at HL study their own region’s history with the same rigour.
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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