History HL: Source Analysis and Analytical Essays
IB History HL Paper 1 requires source analysis using OPVL: Origin, Purpose, Value, and Limitation. Each component earns marks based on the analytical depth and specificity with which it addresses the source's reliability and usefulness for a specific historical investigation. Origin: the author/creator, date, type of document (official report, personal diary, speech, propaganda poster). Purpose: what the source was intended to achieve — to persuade, record, inform, propagandize, memorialize. Value: what makes the source useful for a specific investigation — consider the perspective, access to events, timing relative to events described. Limitation: what reduces the source's utility or reliability — consider potential bias, limited access to information, retrospective nature (written long after events), intended audience shaping the content. A high-scoring OPVL links all four components to the specific historical question being investigated — not generic statements about bias. For History HL essays (Paper 2, Paper 3): construct an argument-driven essay with a clear thesis, not a narrative account of events. Each body paragraph makes a historical argument supported by specific evidence (named historical examples, statistics, quotations from primary sources). The mark scheme rewards arguments that engage with historical significance, causation, change and continuity, and perspective — not events listed chronologically.