IB Economics SLTopic 5 — Assessment and Exam SkillsPaper 2Exam skill~9 min read
Structuring the Paper 2 Response
Part (g) is worth 15 marks, exactly like a Paper 1 part (b). That similarity is a trap. The two are marked on different things, and an answer that would score well on Paper 1 gets capped here for one reason: it never touches the data sitting on the page in front of you.
📘 What you need to know
Part (g) is a 15-mark data-response evaluation, and the last subpart of the question.
The skills that lead are AO2 (explicit use of the stimulus) and AO3 (balanced, context-specific judgement), supported by knowledge and data handling.
Evaluation must be rooted in the stimulus. Theory is essential, but it has to be applied to this text, this table and this country.
Answers that read like a Paper 1 essay are capped, even when the theory is faultless.
The top band needs you to quote figures, trends or statements and fold them into both the analysis and the evaluation.
A workable shape is introduction, analytical paragraphs, evaluation, conclusion.
The conclusion must be a reasoned judgement linked to the evidence, not a general opinion about the policy.
The shape of the answer
Four moves, in order. Open by defining what matters and naming the economic issue in this economy. Analyse with theory that is tied to the data. Evaluate along a few clear lines. Then decide, and say which piece of evidence made you decide.
The order is not sacred, but the four moves are. Miss one and the mark band you can reach drops immediately.
What one analytical paragraph looks like
The paragraph is the unit that wins Paper 2. Get one right and you can repeat the pattern. Make a claim, support it with a chain of economic reasoning, drop in the figure that proves it is happening here, then say what it means.
Read your paragraphs back and look for the blue layer. If it is not there, the paragraph belongs in a Paper 1 answer, not this one.
A useful test while you write: could this paragraph have been written by someone who never saw the stimulus? If yes, it is generic, and generic is exactly what the mark scheme holds back.
A worked run-through
Take a stimulus like this. Country X ran a large infrastructure programme. Its unemployment rate fell from 9.1% in 2023 to 7.4% in 2025. Government debt rose from 48% to 56% of GDP over the same period, and the accompanying text notes that around a third of the new jobs were in construction.
WORKED EXAMPLE
Write the opening of: “Using the information provided, evaluate the effectiveness of Country X’s infrastructure spending in reducing unemployment.” [15]
Step 1: define only what the answer needs
Unemployment is people of working age who are willing and able to work but do not have a job. Expansionary fiscal policy is government spending aimed at raising aggregate demand.
Step 2: name the issue in this economy
Country X used infrastructure spending to raise employment, and the data shows unemployment falling while government debt rose.
Step 3: signal where you are going
“This response considers whether the fall in unemployment can be attributed to the programme, and at what cost.”
Three sentences, then move onA long introduction is wasted words. The marks are in the paragraphs that follow it.
WORKED EXAMPLE
Build one analytical paragraph from the same data, using all four layers.
Claim
The infrastructure programme is likely to have reduced unemployment directly.
Theory
Government spending is a component of aggregate demand, so higher spending raises AD, output rises, and firms hire more workers to produce it, reducing demand-deficient unemployment.
Data
Unemployment fell from 9.1% to 7.4%, a fall of 1.7 percentage points, which is a 18.7% fall in the rate.
Effect
The text notes that about a third of new jobs were in construction, which is what a spending programme of this type would be expected to produce first.
Claim, theory, data, effect(9.1 − 7.4) ÷ 9.1 × 100 = 18.7%. Quoting both the percentage points and the percentage change shows you know the difference.
Evaluating with the data, not around it
Evaluation in Paper 2 has four reliable directions, and every one of them can be tied to something on the page: how the effect differs over time, who gains and who loses, what the policy costs, and what the data itself cannot tell you. That last one is often the strongest and the least used.
Direction
What it sounds like
Where the data comes in
Short run vs long run
Works now, may not last
Construction jobs end when the projects do
Who gains and who loses
Benefits are concentrated
A third of jobs in one sector, so not evenly spread
Cost and opportunity cost
The money came from somewhere
Debt up 8 percentage points, from 48% to 56% of GDP
Limits of the data
The numbers may not show everything
Two years only, and a falling rate can hide people leaving the labour force
WORKED EXAMPLE
Write the conclusion for the same question.
Step 1: answer the command term directly
The programme appears to have been effective at reducing measured unemployment.
Step 2: name the evidence that convinced you
The rate fell by 1.7 percentage points over two years while the spending was running.
Step 3: state the condition on your verdict
Its effectiveness is harder to judge beyond the short run, since debt rose from 48% to 56% of GDP and a third of the new jobs sit in construction, which ends with the projects.
Step 4: the reasoned judgement
“Effective in the short run, but sustaining the fall would depend on whether those workers move into other sectors, which the data does not show.”
A verdict, its evidence, and its limitsNotice there is no new theory here. A conclusion decides; it does not introduce.
💡 Exam tip
Underline three figures in the stimulus before you write, and make sure all three appear in the answer.
Name your source in the sentence: “as Table 1 shows” or “the text states”. It proves the application.
Reuse your own calculations from the earlier subparts. They are already checked and they read as evidence.
Put evaluation inside the paragraphs as well as at the end, so it is woven in rather than bolted on.
Question the data once. Two years of figures, a rate that hides participation, nominal instead of real: any of these is a genuine evaluative point.
Keep 35 minutes for this question. It carries more marks than the other six subparts of the question combined would suggest.
⚠️ Common mix-up
Writing your Paper 1 essay again. Same mark total, different skills, and the mark scheme caps theory-only answers.
Copying the table into the answer. Selecting two or three figures is application; listing them all is not.
Data in the analysis but not in the evaluation. The judgement needs evidence too, not just the middle paragraphs.
A generic conclusion. “It depends on circumstances” fits any paper ever set, which is why it earns nothing.
Long definitions in the introduction that eat the time the evaluation needed.
Ignoring the text and using only the table, or the other way round. The stimulus is both.
New arguments in the conclusion. If it is worth saying, it was worth a paragraph earlier.
That completes Topic 5. A week before the exam, go back to What Paper 1 Asks You to Do and What Paper 2 Asks You to Do and re-read the two timing plans. Knowing the shape of the paper is worth as much as any single topic you revise.
Want this explained one-to-one?
Book a free session with an experienced IB Economics tutor and get your trickiest topics made simple.
