IB English B Paper 1: Word Count, Time Limit and the Three Criteria at SL and HL

These figures come from the IB specimen papers and the 2026 examiner instructions for Language B. They apply to the course with first assessment in 2020, which is the course examined until the updated one reaches its first assessment in May 2029. Your teacher's instructions for your own session take priority over any website, including this one.

The range tells you how much development the task expects. At SL, 250 to 400 words is room for a form-appropriate opening, two or three developed points and a closing. At HL, 450 to 600 words leaves space for a further point, a counterargument or more specific detail. It is not an invitation to repeat the same idea in longer sentences.

Plan by paragraphs rather than by counting as you go. If you know your handwriting gives you about ten words a line, you can estimate length from the page. Writing far below the range usually means a required content point is thin or missing. Writing far above it costs time you need for checking, and it rarely adds anything the criteria reward.

A workable split is about ten minutes to read all three tasks and choose, five to ten minutes to plan, the main block for writing, and the final ten minutes to check. HL students have fifteen more minutes and a longer response, so the proportions stay similar.

Choose the task where you can picture the reader most clearly, not the one with the most familiar topic. A topic you like with an audience you cannot address well is a weaker choice than a plain topic with an obvious reader and purpose. The text type guide shows how to make that choice.

Language asks how accurately and with how much range you use English: vocabulary, grammar and sentence structure that fit the task. Errors matter most when they get in the way of meaning.

Message asks whether you did the job the task set. Are all requested content points present, are the ideas relevant, and are they developed and organized so a reader can follow them? A fluent answer that ignores one bullet point of the task loses ground here.

Conceptual understanding asks whether the text suits its context: the choice of text type, the register and tone for the stated audience, and the conventions of the form used for a purpose. This is where a correct essay written in response to a task that needed a speech falls short.

The official markbands and the marks available for each criterion are in the Language B guide that your teacher uses. Ask to see them. This article describes what each criterion looks at and does not reproduce the descriptors.

Read the task again, not your answer. Tick each content point as you find it in your response. Then read your first and last paragraphs: would a stranger know what kind of text this is and who it is for? Finally scan for the two or three language errors you make most often. A personal error list built from marked class work is more useful here than a general grammar checklist.

You can practise this routine in the Nektar app. IB English B writing tasks there state the audience, purpose and text type options, and feedback is grouped under the same three criteria. It is practice feedback and does not give an IB mark.

The IB has announced an updated Language B course with first teaching in August 2027 and first assessment in May 2029, and says the assessment model and the external papers are unchanged. Our 2029 summary covers what has been published. Confirm the figures above against the guide for your own cohort.