
The IB DP is widely praised because of its goal of developing twenty-first-century skills in our students. The skills are reflected in the IB Learner Profile and in Meridian High School’s vision. Assessing twenty-first-century skills such as critical and creative thinking, inquiry, research, conceptual understanding, cross-cultural communication, etc, requires dynamic and complex forms of assessment. Thus, “a variety of different methods are used to measure student achievement against the objectives for each [IB] course.”
An IB exam “score” is the result of both external assessments and internal assessments. Internal assessments are initially assessed by classroom teachers and moderated by IBO examiners. External assessments are wholly assessed by IB examiners and include:
essays
structured problems
short-response questions
data-response questions
text-response questions
case-study questions
multiple-choice questions [limited to a small portion of Group 4 (Science) assessments]