In simple terms
A friendly intro before the formal notes — no formulas yet.
The Perfect Pair: Nailing Your IO Topic
The first step of the IO is choosing a real-world problem (a 'global issue') and finding two different types of texts from your course that explore it. Your job is to analyse how the authors use their craft to present this issue, not just what they say about it.
Imagine you are a detective investigating a case (the global issue). You find two very different pieces of evidence: a handwritten diary entry (your literary text) and a set of public security camera recordings (your non-literary text). Both point to the same conclusion, but they do so in vastly different ways. Your task is to explain how each piece of evidence, through its unique form and features, builds the case.
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Begin with a broad 'Field of Inquiry' from the IB guide, such as 'Power, politics and justice'.
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Narrow this down to a specific, debatable 'Global Issue' that can be explored in texts, for example, 'How state-controlled media shapes public perception of justice'.
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Select one literary work and one non-literary body of work from your course that both engage with this specific issue in a complex manner.
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Pinpoint precise extracts (a 40-line passage from the literary work and a comparable section of the non-literary work) that are rich with authorial choices for analysis.
Explore the concept
Use the live diagram and synced steps — play it or tap a step card to walk through.
Full topic notes
Formal explanation with the rigour you need for the exam.
Step 1: From Broad Field to Focused Global Issue
Your starting point is one of the five Fields of Inquiry. These are vast territories. Your task is to survey this territory and pinpoint a specific, compelling location for your investigation. A 'global issue' is not a theme like 'identity'; it is a debatable, real-world problem or tension. To refine a theme into an issue, ask 'how' or 'to what extent'. For example, 'Identity' becomes 'How does forced migration challenge or erase cultural identity?'. This reframing transforms a topic into a focused line of inquiry, which is precisely what examiners look for in a top-level oral.
Transnational: The issue must exist across national borders, cultures, and time periods.
Significant: It has a real-world impact and matters on a wide scale.
Arguable: It should not have a simple 'yes' or 'no' answer. It should provoke discussion and allow for complex perspectives.
Grounded in the Texts: The issue must be genuinely present and explored in the works you have studied, not imposed upon them.
Step 2: Selecting the Literary Work and Extract
Once you have a provisional global issue, scan the literary works you have studied. Which one offers the most complex and insightful exploration of this issue? Avoid texts that are merely 'about' the issue. Instead, look for a work where the issue is embedded in the very fabric of the author's craft. Your chosen 40-line extract must be a microcosm of this exploration. It should be a 'hotspot' dense with stylistic features, character interactions, or structural elements that you can analyse in detail to illuminate the author's perspective on the global issue.
Step 3: Selecting the Non-Literary Body of Work
The term 'body of work' is crucial. You are not analysing a single, isolated advertisement or article. You are analysing a coherent collection of texts from the same source, which could be an ad campaign by one brand, a series of political cartoons by one artist, or several speeches by one activist. A single, substantial text like a feature-length documentary can also qualify. The body of work must offer a different lens on the same global issue. This difference might be in context (e.g., historical vs. contemporary), purpose (e.g., to entertain vs. to persuade), or form (e.g., dramatic vs. visual).
A common pitfall is choosing a non-literary text that is too simple. A single print advertisement, for example, may not offer enough substance for a 5-minute analysis. Ensure your chosen body of work has sufficient complexity and a range of authorial choices to discuss, such as use of colour, layout, typography, rhetorical appeals, and mode of address.
Step 4: Ensuring Synergy and a Focused Argument
The best IOs feature a pairing of texts that 'speak' to each other. This is synergy. Your job is not to present two mini-essays back-to-back. It is to moderate a conversation between the texts, using the global issue as the central topic. How does the non-literary text challenge, reinforce, or complicate the ideas presented in the literary work? A strong pairing allows you to move beyond simple comparison ('both texts show X') to a more evaluative argument ('while the novel critiques X through irony, the ad campaign celebrates it through visual rhetoric, revealing a fundamental tension in our globalised world'). This level of synthesis is the hallmark of a top-band performance.
Test your pairing: Ask yourself, 'What new understanding of the issue do I gain by looking at these two texts together?'
Plan your structure: Your argument should be built around the global issue, using the texts as evidence. Do not structure it as '5 minutes on text A, 5 minutes on text B'.
Focus on methods: Compare the how. How do the authors' different choices of form, structure, and style lead to different representations of the issue?
Refine your issue: Once you have your texts, you may need to slightly rephrase your global issue to better fit the specific nuances of your chosen works. This is a sign of a thoughtful and responsive process.
Worked examples
See the formulas applied — reveal one step at a time, like the exam.
Formulate a global issue and select a literary text and extract. Justify your choices with reference to the IB assessment criteria.
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Global Issue Formulation
Field of Inquiry: Culture, identity and community Refined Global Issue: How the commodification of culture for tourism risks eroding authentic cultural identity.
Pair a non-literary body of work with The Reluctant Fundamentalist to explore the global issue of cultural commodification. Justify your selection.
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Non-Literary Body of Work Selection
Non-Literary Body of Work: A selection of tourism campaign videos produced by a national tourism board (e.g., Tourism Australia's 'Come and Say G'day' campaign).
How it all connects
The big idea sits in the middle — tap a linked idea to explore the link.
Tap a linked idea to see how it connects back to the main topic — that connection is what examiners reward.
Glossary
Try to recall each definition before you reveal it.
Quick check
Answer in your head first — then tap to check. No pressure.
Revision flashcards
Flip the card. Test yourself before the exam.
Global Issue
A significant, transnational issue that has a local manifestation. It must be arguable and complex, not a simple theme like 'love' or 'war'. Example: 'How conflict perpetuates cycles of trauma across generations'.
Key takeaways
Review these before you close the topic — retrieval beats re-reading.
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Transnational: The issue must exist across national borders, cultures, and time periods.
- ✓
Significant: It has a real-world impact and matters on a wide scale.
- ✓
Arguable: It should not have a simple 'yes' or 'no' answer. It should provoke discussion and allow for complex perspectives.
- ✓
Grounded in the Texts: The issue must be genuinely present and explored in the works you have studied, not imposed upon them.
Practice — then mark it
The whole point: a real Cambridge question, marked mark-by-mark.
Test your ability to formulate a global issue and justify your text choices with this practice prompt. Get expert feedback on your ideas.
Test your ability to formulate a global issue and justify your text choices with this practice prompt. Get expert feedback on your ideas.
Extra simulations & links
PhET, GeoGebra and other curated tools — open in a new tab.
Frequently asked
Checkpoint
One marked question is worth ten re-reads — close the loop before you move on.
Reading it isn’t knowing it — prove it.
Before you move on: do Test your ability to formulate a global issue and justify your text choices with this practice prompt. Get expert feedback on your ideas. on paper, snap a photo, and get examiner-style feedback on exactly where you win and lose marks.