Criterion D is about thinking, not retelling. You compare perspectives, test sources for reliability and values, and combine evidence into an argument that you can defend.
You explore an idea from more than one angle.
Evidence from several sources is combined into a clear, backed-up claim.
You judge origin, purpose, values and limitations, not just what a source says.
You explain why different people see it differently and what follows.
A little of the criterion is addressed. Ideas are basic, partly missing, or not linked to the task.
The main points are there but thin. Some explanations are correct; links to the task or evidence are incomplete.
Mostly accurate, well explained and consistently tied to the task, with only small gaps.
Detailed, precise and justified throughout, with ideas connected and applied to new situations or evidence.
A plain-language guide only. Your teacher marks against the official IB level descriptors.
Evaluate a government poster from 1942 encouraging people to grow their own food.
The poster is useful because it is from 1942 and shows what people did.
The poster was produced by the Ministry of Food to persuade the public to grow vegetables, so its purpose was to build morale as well as to inform. That makes it valuable for showing official wartime messages, but limited as evidence of what households actually did, because it does not show how many people took part. To judge its impact I would compare it with diaries or sales figures for seeds.
Criterion D is Thinking critically. It is marked out of 8 across 4 strands (D.i, D.ii, D.iii, D.iv). Criterion D is about thinking, not retelling. You compare perspectives, test sources for reliability and values, and combine evidence into an argument that you can defend.
Use the OPCVL prompts for a source: origin, purpose, content, value and limitation. Compare at least two perspectives and say why they differ, such as role, time or evidence. Make a clear claim, support it with evidence from more than one source, and respond to a counter-argument.
Summarising a source instead of evaluating it. Treating a primary source as automatically reliable. A conclusion that repeats the introduction without weighing the evidence.
Written by CritABCD for study and revision, in our own words. The official MYP Individuals & Societies (Humanities) guide and assessment criteria are published by the International Baccalaureate. Official IB guide ↗