English B subject report · November 2009

November 2009 Extended Essay reports Page 1 © International Baccalaureate Organization 2009 ENGLISH B Overall grade boundaries Grade: E D C B A Mark range: 0 - 7 8 - 15 16 - 22 23 - 28 29 - 36 The range and suitability of the work submitted This session, Category 3 literary topics seemed only slightly more popular than Category 1 and 2 essay topics. Marks represented the full range from excellent to elementary with a healthy percentage of essays achieving „excellent‟ and „good.‟ Nonetheless, there are still a number of inappropriate topics submitted or topics with a poor approach, which severely limits the awarding of marks in a number of criteria. The academic register of the majority of essays was generally clear and appropriate. There were few Category 1 essays submitted. The most successful of these focused purposefully on a particul ar language use, for example the specific rhetoric used by a particular group for targeted discriminatory purposes. Another such topic compared the language used in leading newspapers to reflect certain countries‟ positive or negative public attitudes toward possibilities for international agreement on global warming. There are many more possibilities in the Category 1 area that could be explored and that could serve many candidates well given the natural focus of linguistic analysis. Category 2a essays tha t are “socio -cultural in nature with an impact on the language,” as described in the Extended Essay Guide, tended to be very broad in approach. Essay topics chosen under Category 2b varied greatly in how clearly the topics aligned with the description pro vided in the Extended Essay Guide . Artefacts or cultural icons may be thought of as symbols of the culture and might be approached somewhat like an anthropologist might analyze the artefacts she/he finds to determine the