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The Individual Oral (IO) is one of the main assessments students must complete for both IB English A: Literature and IB English A: Language and Literature. It assesses your ability to connect literary or non-literary texts to global issues, demonstrating analytical and critical thinking skills through a formal oral presentation. Students are allowed to have notes in the form of bullet points to help guide their analysis. This post will outline some details on how to prepare your bullet points for the English A IO.
IB English A IO Bullet Points Word Count
Students can bring one single sheet with a maximum of 10 bullet points to their English A IO. This applies to both English A: Literature and English A: Language and Literature students. The bullet points must be:
Concise – Students must not write a paragraph for each bullet point. Instead, the bullet points should be concise enough to be read quickly during the IO and prevent long pauses. Students must also not read directly from their notes and should use the bullet points only as guidelines.
Understandable – Conversely, the bullet points must not be so short that they are difficult to understand when quickly glancing at them during the IO. Ensure that the bullet points contain brief phrases, transition words and references to both extracts to help guide you through the IO.
Each bullet point should be no more than 20-30 words, and the total word count of all the bullet points combined should not exceed 300 words. For examples of good English A IO bullet points, see this post here.
Tips for Writing Effective Bullet Points
Use phrases, not sentences – The bullet points need to be easy to read at a glance. Long sentences will require a greater time to skim over and may result in taking long pauses during the IO, which can reduce your overall mark. Instead of writing sentences, include key phrases in your bullet to jog your memory and ensure you can formulate your thoughts quickly.
Include links to the global issue – The main purpose of the IO is to link two texts using a global issue. In your bullet points, you should make sure to include references to the global issue to help you keep your analysis on track. Ensure you have enough reminders for connecting both texts using the global issue you have chosen.
Practice without any notes – Before writing your bullet points, first try practicing your IO out loud and make a note of which topics you remember and which you don't. In this way, you can prioritize writing notes for the topics that you have trouble remembering, rather than wasting bullet points on writing down ideas that come easily to you.
We hope you found this post helpful in learning more about IB English A IO bullet points. For more useful materials associated with the IB, check out the wide variety of IA, EE and TOK exemplars available at Clastify.
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