Educerie · IB Diploma · English A: Language and Literature
Paper 1 — Guided textual analysis · mark scheme
Marked by criteria, not points. Award each criterion the band that best fits the response as a whole. Do not compensate between criteria.
1Criterion A — Understanding and interpretation — 5 marks
| Band | Descriptor | Marks |
|---|---|---|
| 5 | Thorough and perceptive understanding of the text's purpose, audience and context, inferred from evidence in the text. Interpretation is convincing and consistently supported by precise reference. Implication and tone are read as readily as statement. | 5 |
| 4 | Good understanding; purpose and audience identified with some evidence; interpretation generally convincing. | 4 |
| 3 | Adequate understanding; purpose and audience asserted rather than inferred; references sometimes general. | 3 |
| 2 | Superficial understanding; purpose or audience not established; references scarce. | 2 |
| 1 | Little understanding; largely summary of content. | 1 |
| 0 | Nothing creditable. | 0 |
For the harbour column, a band 5 response identifies that the writer's central concern is not the lights but the legitimacy of the process, and reads the repeated disclaimers ("I am not against progress", "I would probably quite like the lights") as a defensive strategy anticipating the accusation the first paragraph names.
A response that treats the column as an argument against the installations has misread it and cannot exceed band 2, since the text says the opposite twice.
2Criterion B — Analysis and evaluation — 5 marks
| Band | Descriptor | Marks |
|---|---|---|
| 5 | Insightful and convincing analysis of how linguistic, structural and (where present) visual choices produce effects on a specific audience. Devices are never merely named. Evaluates how far the text achieves its purpose. | 5 |
| 4 | Good analysis; effects usually explained and linked to purpose; some assertion. | 4 |
| 3 | Adequate; features identified and some effects explained, but tending to description. | 3 |
| 2 | Feature-spotting: devices named with little or no explanation of effect. | 2 |
| 1 | Features named without analysis, or devices asserted that are not present in the text. | 1 |
| 0 | Nothing creditable. | 0 |
This is the discriminating criterion. Indicative content — the pre-emptive concession opening the column and the circularity it exposes; the deployment of specific numbers (six weeks, 240 of 11 000, forty-one years) against the council's vaguer "strong support"; the tricolon of past consultations (car park, bypass, bin collection) diminishing in significance to make the point bathetically; the explicit refusal to allege impropriety, which strengthens the writer's credibility while making the charge harder to rebut; the closing repetition of "in a font I could not read", which converts a small physical detail into the emblem of the whole argument.
Asserting a device not present in the text is penalised here and in criterion A.
3Criterion C — Focus and organisation — 5 marks
| Band | Descriptor | Marks |
|---|---|---|
| 5 | Well-organised, coherently developed argument with a clear thesis about how the text works. Addresses the guiding question throughout; ideas build on one another. | 5 |
| 4 | Organised and mostly coherent; guiding question addressed; development uneven. | 4 |
| 3 | Adequately organised, but structured as a tour of features rather than an argument. | 3 |
| 2 | Some organisation; the guiding question addressed only in passing. | 2 |
| 1 | Little organisation; no discernible argument. | 1 |
| 0 | Nothing creditable. | 0 |
Two caps. A response with one paragraph per technique — diction, then structure, then tone — cannot exceed band 3. A response that never addresses the guiding question, here structure and tone, cannot exceed band 2.
4Criterion D — Language — 5 marks
| Band | Descriptor | Marks |
|---|---|---|
| 5 | Clear, precise and varied; register consistently appropriate to formal analysis; terminology accurate. | 5 |
| 4 | Clear and generally accurate; occasional lapses not impeding meaning. | 4 |
| 3 | Adequate; errors present but meaning rarely obscured; register sometimes informal. | 3 |
| 2 | Frequent errors sometimes impeding meaning; register often inappropriate. | 2 |
| 1 | Errors persistently impede meaning. | 1 |
| 0 | Nothing creditable. | 0 |
Credit accurate use of the metalanguage of non-literary analysis — register, modality, salience, reading path, direct address, tricolon — where correctly applied. Misapplied terminology is penalised here and limits criterion B, since a term used wrongly cannot support accurate analysis. Treating the writer's claims as established fact rather than as claims the text makes is an analytical failure and should be reflected in criterion A.
Mark distribution
| Split | Allocation |
|---|---|
| By criterion | A Understanding and interpretation 5 · B Analysis and evaluation 5 · C Focus and organisation 5 · D Language 5 |
| By objective | AO1 knowledge and understanding 5 · AO2 analysis 5 · AO3 organisation and argument 5 · AO4 language 5 |
Total: 20 marks
At higher level, Paper 1 requires two guided analyses in 135 minutes for 40 marks, with the same four criteria applied to each.
Educerie · original mark scheme for an original assessment, written against the published IB Diploma Programme criteria structure for Language A: Language and Literature Paper 1, amended guide, first assessment 2026. Band descriptors are our own wording. Last reviewed 5 September 2026.