• Teachers should not think in terms of a pass or fail boundary but should concentrate on identifying the appropriate descriptor for each assessment criterion.
• Teachers should not think in terms of a pass or fail boundary but should concentrate on identifying the appropriate descriptor for each assessment criterion.
• The highest level descriptors do not imply faultless performance but should be achievable by a
student. Teachers should not hesitate to use the extremes if they are appropriate descriptions of the
work being assessed.
• A student who attains a high achievement level in relation to one criterion will not necessarily attain
high achievement levels in relation to the other criteria. Similarly, a student who attains a low
achievement level for one criterion will not necessarily attain low achievement levels for the other
criteria. Teachers should not assume that the overall assessment of the students will produce any
particular distribution of marks.
• It is recommended that the assessment criteria be made available to students.
Internal assessment details—SL and HL
Portfolio
Duration: 20 hours
Weighting: 30% (SL), 20% (HL)
Rationale
Internal assessment in economics enables students to demonstrate the application of their knowledge and
understanding of economic theory in relation to real-world situations.
Requirements
Both SL and HL economics students produce a portfolio of three commentaries based on articles from
published news media. Each article must be based on a different unit of the syllabus (excluding Unit 1:
Introduction to economics): Unit 2: Microeconomics, Unit 3: Macroeconomics and Unit 4: The global
economy.
Articles
The articles may be from a newspaper, a journal or the internet, but must not be from television or radio broadcasts. If a student includes a relatively lengthy article, which is discouraged, the student must highlight the section(s) of the article upon which the commentary is based. Articles used must have been published no earlier than one year before the writing of the commentary.
The article on which the commentary is based should, where possible, be in the same language as the commentary. If an extract in another language is used, the student must provide an accurate translation of the whole article. Students must also include the original article in their portfolio.
Individual work
Students must select their own articles to discuss. It may happen that more than one student bases his or
her commentary on the same article, but the article must not be given to the class by the teacher, and the
production of the commentary must be each student’s individual work. A commentary must not be
prepared collaboratively.
Key concepts
Each of the three commentaries must use a different key concept as a lens through which to analyse the
published extracts. Students will risk losing 3 marks in criterion D if they use the same key concept in two
commentaries and up to 6 marks if the same key concept is used in three commentaries.
Please refer to the
Economics teacher support material for further guidance.