IB Business Management HLTopic 7 — Exam Skills and AssessmentPaper 1Exam skill~8 min read
What Paper 1 Asks For
Paper 1 is the only paper you get a head start on. Three months before the exam you are told the topic, the key terms and the opening of the case study. Students who use that time properly walk in already knowing the business. Students who ignore it meet a stranger on exam day.
📘 What you need to know
Paper 1 has two sections and lasts 1 hour 30 minutes, for a total of 30 marks.
It is worth 25% of your final grade, and SL and HL sit the same paper — so no HL-only content can appear.
Every question is based on one extended case study, which you only see on the day.
Three months before, a pre-release statement gives you the topic, a list of key terminology and the first five paragraphs of that case study.
Section A is 20 marks of short structured questions — define, explain and describe. You answer all of them.
Section B is one 10-mark discuss question, chosen from two.
How the paper is built
Paper 1 is not a memory test. Everything you write has to be tied back to one business, and that business is described in the case study handed to you at the start of the exam. Questions can come from any part of the syllabus, so you cannot revise “just the marketing bit” and hope.
Section A is worth double Section B, so it deserves double the time — not the leftovers.
The pre-release statement
Three months before the exam, the IB releases a short statement. It tells you the broad topic of the case study, lists terminology that may not be in the syllabus, and gives you the first five paragraphs of the business you will be writing about. You are advised to spend a maximum of five hours researching it.
The five hours are for understanding the industry and the vocabulary, so that nothing on the day sounds foreign.
🧩 How to spend the five hours
Define every key term on the list in one sentence of your own. If you cannot, you will lose easy define marks.
Read the five paragraphs like a detective. Underline the ownership type, the size, the market, the objectives and any problem already hinted at.
Learn how the industry works. Who are the customers? What are the costs? Who else competes? This is where application marks come from.
Match the topic to syllabus tools. If the statement is about a manufacturer expanding abroad, brush up on economies of scale, market entry and Ansoff.
Do not write model answers. You do not have the questions yet, and a pre-learned essay almost never fits what is actually asked.
Students often waste the research time reading about the real-world company they think the case study is based on. Examiners reward what you do with the case study in front of you, not outside trivia.
Section A: 20 marks, no choice
Section A is a set of structured questions built straight off the case study. There is no choice, so every mark here is a mark you were always going to be asked for. The questions are short: definitions worth 2 marks, explanations worth 2 or 4, and describe questions worth 4.
Short does not mean vague. A 2-mark answer needs two separate credit-worthy statements, and a 4-mark answer needs two developed points. Counting marks tells you how many things to write.
Section B: one discuss question
You are given two discuss questions and answer only one, for 10 marks. A discuss answer weighs up at least two sides — two options, two consequences, or an argument and its counter-argument — and finishes with a conclusion that actually decides something.
Spend a minute choosing. The question you can support with the most case-study evidence is almost always the better one, even if the topic feels less comfortable.
Timing
Minutes per mark
minutes available ÷ marks available = time per mark
WORKED EXAMPLE
Plan how to spend the 90 minutes of Paper 1.
Step 1: find the time per mark90 minutes ÷ 30 marks = 3 minutes per markStep 2: share the time out by sectionSection A: 20 marks × 3 = 60 minutesSection B: 10 marks × 3 = 30 minutesStep 3: take the reading time out of Section A, not Section B10 min reading • 52 min Section A • 28 min Section BA 2-mark question gets about six minutes at that rate — that is far too long, so bank the spare time for the discuss question.
WORKED EXAMPLE
Two discuss questions are offered. Which do you pick?
Question 1 asks you to discuss whether the business should launch a new product line. Question 2 asks you to discuss the impact of its leadership style on staff. The case study contains sales figures, a competitor table and one sentence about the founder being approachable.
Step 1: count the evidence, not the comfort
Question 1 has figures and a competitor table to quote. Question 2 has one sentence.
Step 2: check you can argue both ways
New product line: growth and spreading risk versus cost and losing focus. Two clear sides.
Answer Question 1Evidence wins arguments. A topic you like with nothing to quote will stall halfway down the page.
💡 Exam tip
Read the whole case study first, pen in hand. Ten minutes spent reading saves you from an answer built on the wrong facts.
Underline numbers as you read. Figures are the easiest application marks in the paper.
Answer in the order the marks fall, not the order that feels comfortable. Section A is worth twice Section B.
Use the company name in every answer. If your paragraph would work for any business, it is not applied.
Do not learn the pre-release material word for word. The other paragraphs will change the picture.
Leave three minutes at the end to check that every question actually got answered — a missed part is the cheapest mark to lose.
⚠ Common mix-up
Thinking the pre-release is the case study. It is only the opening. The rest arrives on the day and often changes what the business needs.
Writing HL theory into Paper 1. This paper is shared with SL, so HL-only tools cannot be required — they will not gain you extra credit here.
Answering both discuss questions. Only one is marked, and you have wasted half your Section B time.
Treating “discuss” as “describe”. A one-sided answer with no counter-argument caps your marks low.
Running out of time on Section B because Section A was written like an essay. Short questions get short answers.
Repeating case-study sentences instead of using them as evidence for a point of your own.
Up next: What Paper 2 Asks For — the quantitative paper, where the case studies are unseen and the numbers do the talking.
Want this explained one-to-one?
Book a free session with an experienced IB Business Management tutor and get your trickiest topics made simple.
