Contents: 7 sections
Why command terms decide your mark
The command term is the first word of the question, and it fixes the ceiling of your answer before you write anything. An answer that explains beautifully when the question said evaluate cannot reach the top band, however good the economics is, because the thing being marked was never attempted.
Command terms fall into three tiers. Each tier includes everything below it: you cannot evaluate well without analysing, and you cannot analyse without defining.
Tier 1: knowledge and understanding
These ask you to retrieve. Short answers, no diagram unless one is requested, no evaluation.
| Term | What it demands |
|---|---|
| Define | Give the precise meaning of a term. A meaning, not an example. |
| State | Give a specific answer with no explanation. |
| List | Give a sequence of brief answers with no explanation. |
| Outline | Give a brief account of the main points. |
| Identify | Select and name from given information. |
| Calculate | Obtain a numerical answer, showing the working. |
| Label | Add labels to a diagram. |
| Draw | Represent by means of a labelled diagram. |
| Plot | Mark the position of points on a diagram. |
The commonest error here is over-answering. A define question asked for one thing; writing a paragraph earns nothing extra and costs you time on the questions that are actually worth marks.
Tier 2: application and analysis
These ask you to use economics on a situation. This is where causal chains and diagrams belong.
| Term | What it demands |
|---|---|
| Explain | Give a detailed account including reasons or causes. |
| Analyse | Break down to bring out the essential elements and how they relate. |
| Suggest | Propose a solution, hypothesis or answer. |
| Apply | Use an idea or theory in a particular situation. |
| Distinguish | Make clear the differences between two or more things. |
| Comment | Give a judgement based on a given statement or result. |
| Describe | Give a detailed account. |
"Explain" is the one to get right, because it is the most common command term on the paper and the most commonly under-answered. Explain means give the reasons. The test is whether your answer contains the word "because", or an arrow you could put a "because" on:
Supply shifts right because the subsidy lowers unit costs → at the original price there is excess supply because producers now offer more → price falls until the market clears.
An answer that states what happens without saying why has described, not explained.
"Distinguish" requires the differences to be explicit. Writing a paragraph about A and then a paragraph about B leaves the examiner to find the contrast. Name it: "whereas a movement along the curve is caused only by the good's own price, a shift is caused by a non-price determinant."
Tier 3: synthesis and evaluation
These ask you to judge. Analysis alone, however thorough, cannot reach the top bands here.
| Term | What it demands |
|---|---|
| Evaluate | Make an appraisal by weighing up strengths and limitations. |
| Discuss | Offer a considered, balanced review including a range of arguments. |
| Examine | Consider an argument or concept, revealing assumptions and interrelationships. |
| To what extent | Consider the merits or otherwise of an argument, with conclusions clearly stated. |
| Justify | Give valid reasons or evidence to support an answer or conclusion. |
| Compare and contrast | Give an account of similarities and differences. |
| Recommend | Present an advisable course of action, with reasons. |
All of these require a judgement, and the judgement must follow from the analysis rather than sitting on top of it.
Note the traps in this tier:
- Compare and contrast needs both. Most answers give only differences.
- To what extent explicitly demands a stated conclusion. "It depends" without saying on what is not a conclusion.
- Recommend demands that you actually choose. An even-handed discussion that never commits forfeits the marks for recommending.
- Examine asks you to surface assumptions, what does the model take as given, and what happens when that fails?
What evaluation actually looks like
The most common misunderstanding in IB Economics is that evaluation means listing disadvantages. It does not. Evaluation is reasoning about the conditions under which a conclusion holds. The reliable routes:
- Elasticity. How responsive are the parties? Almost every policy question turns on this somewhere.
- Time frame. Does the effect hold in the short run, the long run, both, or reverse?
- Stakeholders. Who gains, who loses, who pays? Distribution is an economic question, not a moral aside.
- Assumptions. Perfect information, rationality, ceteris paribus, which are doing the work, and what if they fail?
- The counterfactual. Compared with what? A policy is only better or worse than an alternative.
- Priorities and trade-offs. Efficiency against equity, growth against sustainability, one macro objective against another.
- The evidence. Is the data recent, complete, representative, from an interested party?
A judgement built from any two of those, stated conditionally, outperforms a list of six generic drawbacks.
Turning the command term into a plan
Before writing, do this in the margin:
- Circle the command term and name its tier.
- If it is Tier 1, answer briefly and move on.
- If it is Tier 2, plan one chain and decide whether a diagram is needed.
- If it is Tier 3, plan two chains, choose the condition your judgement will turn on, and write that condition down before you start. It is what you are building towards.
That last step prevents the most expensive failure in IB Economics: reaching the end of a strong 15-mark answer with nothing to conclude.
Practise this
Command-term discipline is a habit, not knowledge, so it improves fastest through repetition on many questions rather than a few full essays.
The Answer Builder in the portal is structured around it, each step names the tier of thinking the examiner wants next, so you practise matching the response to the command.