Paper 2
Paper 2 is an essay paper for both Standard and Higher students.
This page gives an overview what is required; see the page Essay writing for Paper 2 to get hints for tackling Paper 2 essay questions and for suggestions for helping students develop their essay writing skills.
What is the nature of Paper 2?
Paper 2 is a one hour and 30 minutes essay paper in which students must answer two essay questions. Each question has to be chosen from a different topic.
What content has to be covered?
For each topic the IBO guide gives an introduction and prescribed themes that must be studied for each topic. However there are no prescribed examples or case studies and exam questions will not include named examples.
The examples that are listed in the guide are for suggestions only.
What is the structure of this paper?
The paper is divided into the different syllabus topics; there are two essay questions for each topic.
Thus it is essential that teachers choose case studies which will allow students to make comparisons across regions.
Students also need to be familiar with the command terms used for essay questions. A student friendly guide to command terms can be found on the page: Essay writing for Paper 2
How will this paper be marked?
Questions are marked out of 15.
There are generic markbands for marking the essays. A student-friendly breakdown of the markbands can be found on the page Assessment for Paper 2.
As there is no prescribed content with regards to case studies there is no indicative content as such for examiners - only guidance on how responses should approach the question and suggested content.
Selected Pages

7. The Cold War: Quizzes 20 March 2021
See below for multiple choice interactive quizzes that students can do online with student access as well as 'paper quizzes'...
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Topic 12: The Cold War: Superpower tensions and rivalries 3 March 2021
World history topic 12: The Cold War: Superpower tensions and rivalriesThis topic is divided into three themes which are...
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3. Theme 3 - Cold War Crises (ATL) 3 March 2021
Theme 3: Cold War crisesThis theme involves studying Cold War crises. A crisis is considered to be an event when there was...
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Topic 08: Independence Movements 29 December 2020
Topic 8 focuses on the emergence of new states in the 19th and 20th Centuries.You will need to cover at least two Independence...
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Topic 11: Causes and effects of 20th Century wars 14 November 2020
This topic allows you study a range of 20th Century wars.The study of each war needs to follow the three areas of 'prescribed...
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Topic 10: Authoritarian States (20th Century) 31 October 2020
This topic focuses on the factors that led to the emergence of authoritarian states in the 20th Century, the methods they...
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