*For Quar­ter grades, MYP marks (i.e. A+C, or C+D, etc) will be con­verted into per­cent­ages and then lev­els using these bound­aries. (A is out of 10, B is out of 10, C is out of 10 and D is out of 8).

Human­i­ties Grading

For ‘other’, non-IB type assign­ments, quizzes, tests, etc we use the nor­mal Human­i­ties Grade Boundaries:

This Per­cent Equals this Level

80 — 100 Level 7

70 — 79 Level 6

57 — 69 Level 5

44 — 56 Level 4

30 — 43 Level 3

20 — 29 Level 2

00 — 19 Level 1

IGCSE Exam Levels

The grade bound­aries for the IGCSE mock exam will be as follows

A*=80% and above

A=64–79%

B=54–63%

C=44–53%

D=38–43%

E=31–37%

F=23–30%

G=15–22%

Below 15%=U

In this course, you’re lucky enough to be earn­ing and MYP as well as an IGCSE qualification.

Click here for the MYP Assess­ment Rubric (Humanities)

For­ma­tive Assessment

Dur­ing the course we will do a lot of activ­i­ties which will rein­force the learn­ing and help you to uncover any mis­un­der­stand­ings. We will use:

1. Prac­tice sheets (as you’ve prob­a­bly already discovered)
2. Activ­i­ties, such as pre­sen­ta­tions and team projects
3. Mock exams. You won’t have any mock exams in your first year, but (as the IGCSE exams approach) we’ll give you a practice-exam, (which will feel very real at the time) which will help you to prac­tice your exam technique.

Sum­ma­tive Assessment

MYP assess­mentis based on a num­ber of pieces of course­work (what we call “MYP Tasks’’). You’ll become for famil­iar with those as the course pro­gresses. In gen­eral we will assess your Knowl­edge, your under­stand­ing of con­cepts, your skills and your abil­ity to orga­nize and present. For more on these skills, see the “What We’re Look­ing for in MYP” (below).

IGCSE Busi­ness assess­ment comes from a two writ­ten exam papers at the end of Year 10.

1. Paper 1 con­sists of short-answer ques­tions. It nor­mally asks for terms to be explained or sug­ges­tions to be made about par­tic­u­lar busi­ness situations.
2. Paper 2 is a case study. Here the ques­tions focus on the busi­ness prob­lem or sit­u­a­tion out­line in the case study. There will be some short answer ques­tions and some long answer ques­tions as well. In gen­eral, this paper will require you to apply busi­ness stud­ies con­cepts and inter­pret the infor­ma­tion given.

What we’re look­ing for in MYP

A Knowl­edge

Knowl­edge is fun­da­men­tal to study­ing human­i­ties, and forms the base from which to explore con­cepts and develop skills.

At the end of the course, the stu­dent should be able to:

1. know and use human­i­ties ter­mi­nol­ogy in context
2. demon­strate sub­ject con­tent knowl­edge and under­stand­ing through the use of descrip­tions and expla­na­tions, sup­ported by rel­e­vant facts and exam­ples, and may show other ways of knowing.

B Con­cepts

Con­cepts are pow­er­ful ideas that have rel­e­vance within and across the dis­ci­plines. Stu­dents should be able to develop an under­stand­ing of the fol­low­ing key human­i­ties con­cepts over the course at increas­ing lev­els of sophistication.

Time

Stu­dents should under­stand the con­cept of “time” not sim­ply as the mea­sure­ment of years or time peri­ods, but as a con­tin­uum of sig­nif­i­cant events of the past. Stu­dents can achieve this through the study of peo­ple, issues, events, sys­tems, cul­tures, soci­eties and envi­ron­ments through time.

At the end of the course, the stu­dent should be able to:

1. estab­lish a per­sonal sense of iden­tity in a con­text of time and place
2. under­stand dif­fer­ent per­cep­tions of time
3. show an under­stand­ing of peo­ple in past societies
4. demon­strate an aware­ness of chronol­ogy that links peo­ple, places and events through time
5. rec­og­nize and explain the sim­i­lar­i­ties and dif­fer­ences that exist between peo­ple, places and events through time.

Place and space

The con­cept of “place and space” refers to a student’s aware­ness of how place/space is cat­e­go­rized, and the sig­nif­i­cance of place/space in human­i­ties disciplines.

At the end of the course, the stu­dent should be able to:

1. rec­og­nize, describe and explain pat­terns and rela­tion­ships in space, includ­ing nat­ural and human environments
2. rec­og­nize and explain sim­i­lar­i­ties and dif­fer­ences between places
3. under­stand con­straints and oppor­tu­ni­ties afforded by location
4. under­stand issues related to place/space on a local, national and global scale.

Change

Change neces­si­tates an exam­i­na­tion of the forces that shape the world. It may be viewed as pos­i­tive or neg­a­tive based on people’s per­cep­tions. The con­cept of “change” addresses both the processes and results of change—natural and arti­fi­cial, inten­tional and unintentional.

At the end of the course, the stu­dent should be able to:

1. under­stand and explain short-term and long-term causes of change
2. estab­lish and explain links between causes, processes and consequences
3. rec­og­nize and explain con­ti­nu­ity and change
4. rec­og­nize that change is inevitable and that the rate of change is rel­e­vant to the context
5. under­stand that as peo­ple inter­act with their envi­ron­ment, both change
6. under­stand and explain how envi­ron­men­tal, polit­i­cal, eco­nomic and social inter­ac­tions can change lev­els of sustainability.

Sys­tems

The con­cept of “sys­tems” refers to the aware­ness that every­thing is con­nected to a sys­tem or sys­tems. Sys­tems pro­vide struc­ture and order to both nat­ural and arti­fi­cial domains.

At the end of the course, the stu­dent should be able to under­stand, iden­tify and compare:

1. how sys­tems, mod­els and insti­tu­tions operate
2. social struc­tures and controls
3. the com­plex and dynamic nature of systems
4. dif­fer­ent types of equi­lib­rium within systems
5. sys­tems in local, national and global societies
6. rights and respon­si­bil­i­ties within systems
7. coop­er­a­tion within and between systems.

Global aware­ness

The con­cept of “global aware­ness” engages stu­dents in a broader global con­text and encour­ages under­stand­ing of, and respect for, other soci­eties and cul­tures. It also empha­sizes the need to under­stand one’s own cul­ture in order to under­stand oth­ers’ cultures.

At the end of the course, the stu­dent should be able to:

1. explain dif­fer­ent per­cep­tions of places, soci­eties and environments
2. show an under­stand­ing of how cul­ture and per­cep­tion can affect a sense of internationalism
3. show an under­stand­ing of the inter­de­pen­dence of societies
4. demon­strate inter­na­tional and inter­cul­tural aware­ness and understanding
5. explore issues fac­ing the inter­na­tional community
6. rec­og­nize issues of equal­ity, jus­tice and responsibility
7. know when and how to take respon­si­ble action where relevant.

C Skills

The devel­op­ment of skills in human­i­ties is crit­i­cal in enabling the stu­dent to under­take research and demon­strate their under­stand­ing of knowl­edge and con­cepts. Stu­dents should be able to demon­strate the fol­low­ing skills dur­ing the human­i­ties course to an increas­ing level of sophistication.

Tech­ni­cal skills

At the end of the course, the stu­dent should be able to:

1. observe, select and record rel­e­vant infor­ma­tion from a wide range of sources
2. use a vari­ety of media and tech­nolo­gies to research, select, inter­pret and com­mu­ni­cate data
3. use sources such as maps, graphs, tables, atlases, pho­tographs and sta­tis­tics, in a crit­i­cal manner
4. rep­re­sent infor­ma­tion using maps, mod­els and dia­grams, includ­ing use of scale, graphs and tables.

Ana­lyt­i­cal skills

At the end of the course, the stu­dent should be able to:

1. analyse and inter­pret infor­ma­tion from a wide range of sources
2. iden­tify key ques­tions, prob­lems and issues
3. crit­i­cally eval­u­ate the val­ues and lim­i­ta­tions of sources
4. com­pare and con­trast events, issues, ideas, mod­els and argu­ments in a range of contexts.

Decision-making skills

At the end of the course, the stu­dent should be able to:

1. develop appro­pri­ate strate­gies to address issues
2. for­mu­late clear, valid and sound argu­ments, make bal­anced judg­ments on events, and draw con­clu­sions, includ­ing implications
3. make well-substantiated deci­sions and relate them to real-world contexts.

Inves­tiga­tive skills

At the end of the course, the stu­dent should be able to:

1. test hypothe­ses and/or ideas and mod­ify them where necessary
2. plan, carry out and present indi­vid­ual and group investigations
3. engage in field­work in order to com­ple­ment an investigation.

D Orga­ni­za­tion and presentation

Stu­dents should be com­fort­able using a vari­ety of for­mats to orga­nize and present their work (includ­ing oral pre­sen­ta­tions, essays, reports, expo­si­tions) and using a vari­ety of media and tech­nolo­gies. They should under­stand that their pre­sen­ta­tion is cre­at­ing a new per­spec­tive on humanities.

At the end of the course, the stu­dent should be able to:

1. com­mu­ni­cate infor­ma­tion that is rel­e­vant to the topic
2. orga­nize infor­ma­tion in a log­i­cally sequenced man­ner, appro­pri­ate to the for­mat used
3. present and express infor­ma­tion and ideas in a clear and con­cise man­ner, using appro­pri­ate lan­guage, style and visual representation
4. use ref­er­enc­ing and a bib­li­og­ra­phy to clearly doc­u­ment sources of infor­ma­tion, using appro­pri­ate conventions.

(With some of the infor­ma­tion com­ing from the MYP Human­i­ties Guide)