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Three commentaries, 800 words each, 45 marks — and 30% of your final grade at SL. Here is exactly what the IA asks for, how it is marked, and where students lose marks they didn't need to.
KS Academia Prep runs IB Economics tuition and Internal Assessment coaching for SL and HL students at Far East Shopping Centre, Orchard Road, Singapore — in English, Simplified Chinese and Korean.
The IB Economics Internal Assessment is a portfolio of three written commentaries, each a maximum of 800 words, in which you apply economic theory to a recent news article you have chosen yourself. Each commentary must cover a different unit of the syllabus, use a different key concept, and draw on a different news source. The portfolio is worth 30% of the final grade at SL and 20% at HL.
It is marked by your teacher against IB criteria and then externally moderated by the IB. Unlike the exams, it is the one component you complete with time, feedback and redrafting available — which is precisely why losing marks here is so avoidable, and so costly when it happens.
These requirements are not guidelines — several of them are worth marks directly, and breaching the word limit costs marks outright.
| Requirement | What it means in practice |
|---|---|
| Three commentaries | One portfolio, three separate pieces, written across the two years of the course. |
| 800 words each | A strict maximum, not a target. Diagrams, labels, references and the article itself sit outside the count. Going over loses marks; being slightly under does not. |
| A different unit each | Unit 2 (Microeconomics), Unit 3 (Macroeconomics) and Unit 4 (The Global Economy). Unit 1 is not used for the IA. |
| A different key concept each | One concept per commentary, no repeats, from the nine key concepts. |
| A different news source each | Three different mainstream outlets. Blogs and academic papers are generally not accepted. |
| Recent articles | Each article must have been published no more than one year before you write that commentary. |
| 45 marks total | 14 marks per commentary (42) plus 3 portfolio-level marks for meeting the rubric requirements. |
| Weighting | 30% of the final grade at SL · 20% at HL. Roughly 20 hours of teaching time is allocated to it. |
Each commentary is marked out of 14 across five criteria, with three further marks awarded once for the portfolio as a whole.
| Criterion | Marks | What earns them |
|---|---|---|
| A — Diagrams | 3 | Relevant, accurate, fully labelled diagrams that are explained in the text — not decoration dropped beside a paragraph. |
| B — Terminology | 2 | Economic terms used correctly and consistently throughout, defined where it matters. |
| C — Application and analysis | 3 | Theory applied specifically to this article, with complete cause-and-effect reasoning. |
| D — Key concept | 3 | The chosen concept used as a genuine analytical lens throughout — not named once and abandoned. |
| E — Evaluation | 3 | A supported, reasoned judgement about the situation or policy — the criterion students most often under-serve. |
| F — Rubric requirements | 3 | One mark each: different units, different sources, and articles current within the year. Free marks — and routinely dropped. |
Read the weighting carefully. Diagrams, the key concept and evaluation are worth 3 marks each — nine of the fourteen marks sit in the three areas students treat as finishing touches. Summarising the article well earns almost nothing; the article is the raw material, not the content.
More IA marks are decided here than anywhere else. A weak article caps your grade no matter how well you write, because it cannot support diagrams, analysis or evaluation.
Something happened, or something was decided: a tax introduced, a subsidy withdrawn, a price moving, a tariff imposed. Change is what you can draw, analyse and evaluate.
One market, one policy, one country. A sweeping "state of the global economy" piece gives you nothing specific enough to build a diagram around.
If the journalist has done the analysis for you, there is nothing left for you to add — and it becomes very hard to show your own reasoning.
A quarterly earnings story or a statistics release usually has no policy, no intervention and no theory to attach.
The test we teach students to apply: before committing, can you name the diagram you will draw, the key concept you will use, and the two evaluative points you will make? If any of the three is missing, the article is not ready — find another. Ten minutes spent here saves a rewrite later.
Students at international schools here have an advantage most IB candidates don't: they live in an economy with unusually clean, well-documented policy interventions — and local outlets that report them in detail. Used well, these produce commentaries that are specific, current and genuinely your own.
| Unit | Singapore examples worth watching | Theory it supports |
|---|---|---|
| Unit 2 Microeconomics | The COE vehicle quota system · the carbon tax (S$45 per tonne from 2026) · GST · water pricing · foreign worker levies | Price mechanism with fixed supply, indirect taxes and incidence, negative externalities and market failure, government intervention |
| Unit 3 Macroeconomics | MAS monetary policy through the exchange rate · the annual Budget · CPI and core inflation releases · the Progressive Wage Model | Demand-side and supply-side policy, AD–AS, inflation, unemployment, income distribution |
| Unit 4 The Global Economy | Singapore's free-trade agreements · port and supply-chain disruption · exchange-rate movements · regional integration | Gains from trade, protectionism, exchange rates, the balance of payments, economic integration |
The standout example: Singapore is one of very few economies that conducts monetary policy through the exchange rate rather than interest rates — MAS manages the Singapore dollar against a trade-weighted basket within a policy band. For a macroeconomics commentary this is gold: it lets you explain why a small, extremely open economy makes that choice, which is exactly the kind of specific, non-generic analysis the application and evaluation criteria reward.
A caution we give every student: choose a Singapore article because the economics is strong, not because it is local. A local story with no policy and no change in it is still a weak article. And do check the source counts as mainstream news media — the requirement applies regardless of country.
There is no required format, but 800 words is very tight, and a loose structure is the most common reason strong students run out of room before reaching evaluation. This is the shape we teach.
What the article reports and which part you are analysing. Two or three sentences. Not a summary — every word here is a word not spent on analysis.
~80 wordsDefine the terms you will actually use, and establish the key concept as the lens from the start. The concept must run through the piece, not appear in the conclusion.
~100 wordsDraw it, label it fully, then explain in the text what it shows and why it moved. The marks come from the explanation as much as the diagram itself.
~180 wordsLink the theory to this article's specifics — the actual policy, market and figures. Complete the causal chain rather than stopping at the first effect.
~220 wordsWeigh the policy or outcome and reach a judgement, using the structure below. This is 3 marks and it needs real space — protect it when you cut.
~180 wordsA short, decisive answer. No new material, no hedging — a judgement the examiner can see you have supported.
~40 wordsCriterion E is where the strongest students still lose marks, usually by listing advantages and disadvantages without ever deciding anything. The same five moves we drill for Paper 1 essays work inside the 800-word limit, and they turn evaluation into something repeatable rather than improvised.
Who gains and who loses from the policy in this article.
Short run versus long run — effects that fade, or only appear later.
How large the effect is, and whether it is big enough to matter here.
What must hold for your analysis to work — elasticity, ceteris paribus — and when it doesn't.
A supported conclusion, weighted to your strongest point.
Nearly all of these are fixable before submission — which is what makes them frustrating to see in a moderated portfolio.
The single most common failure. The article is your raw material, not your content. Fix: cap context at three sentences and make everything after it your own economics.
Criterion D is 3 marks and requires the concept to work as a lens throughout. Fix: return to it explicitly in the analysis and again in the judgement.
An unexplained diagram earns a fraction of what it could. Fix: label every axis and curve, and write the sentences that say what shifted and why.
Balance without judgement is not evaluation. Fix: finish with a decision, and say what it rests on.
Two articles from the same outlet, or an article that has aged past a year by the time you write, costs marks that required no skill at all. Fix: track unit, source and publication date in one place from the first commentary.
The IA is designed to be spread across two years. Compressed portfolios read rushed and lose the redrafting that lifts marks. Fix: aim for one commentary per term.
We coach the IA the way it is actually assessed — article choice first, then structure, then the criteria that carry the marks. We do not write commentaries for students: the IA is your own work, and IB academic-honesty rules require it to stay that way.
We work through candidate articles against the three-part test above, so students commit to a piece that can actually reach the top bands.
Targeted work on the criteria carrying the most marks — diagrams, key concept and evaluation — using the same frameworks taught in class.
Structured feedback on your own drafts, marked against the IB criteria, so you know which mark band you are in and precisely what moves you up.
The IA is written in English, but the thinking behind it does not have to start there. For students who understand the economics more readily in another language, we teach the concept first and then build the English commentary that earns the marks.
IB 경제학 IA(내부평가)를 한국어로 함께 준비합니다. 개념을 모국어로 먼저 이해한 뒤, 채점 기준에 맞는 영어 커멘터리를 작성하도록 지도합니다. 학부모님과의 상담도 한국어로 가능합니다. 오차드 파 이스트 쇼핑센터 #15-06.
我们提供 IB 经济学 IA（内部评估）的中文辅导：先用中文讲透经济学概念，再指导学生写出符合评分标准的英文评论。家长沟通同样可以使用中文。地址：乌节路远东购物中心 #15-06。
The full course: the four units, every paper, the exam technique behind a 7, and how our lessons run at Orchard.
IB Economics tuition →The IA is the easiest thing in the Diploma to defer. Supervised study gives students a distraction-free room and a neutral adult holding the line.
Explore supervised study sessions →The IA is worth 30% at SL and 20% at HL — one of several things worth weighing before the subject decision locks.
Explore subject consultation →Whether it's choosing an article, fixing a diagram, or getting evaluation into the top band — tell us where you are and we'll take it from there.
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