IB DP Language A: Literature – The Individual Oral and Global Issues Practice Questions

These are original questions written for Marlbridge, for revision and practice on this content. They are not reproduced past-paper questions, and they do not replicate the exam’s exact structure, question count or mark tariffs – the IB holds copyright in its own papers. Use these alongside the official past papers available through your school or the IB store.

These questions practise the individual oral in IB Diploma Programme Language A: Literature. They draw on the areas of exploration Readers, writers and texts and Intertextuality: connecting texts, at both SL and HL. It follows the current IB subject brief (first assessments for SL and HL 2021).

Before you start, read the study guide or the revision notes. Course links: Literature course hub · printable checklist.

The oral itself is marked holistically by your teacher against the IB criteria, not point by point. The marks below show which moves earn credit in practice.

Questions

Use these two extracts for Questions 3 to 11. Treat them as extracts from two works you have studied for your oral, with English as the language studied.

Extract A: from a work originally written in English (Original text written for Marlbridge, from an imagined poetry collection):

Remittance

Each month the phone lights up before the dawn:
a number, then his name, then his new street.
We buy the roof, the school shoes, the new lawn;
we cannot buy the sound of his own feet.
My daughter asks which country he is in.
I show her on the map the blue between.

Extract B: from a work studied in translation (Original text written for Marlbridge, presented as a passage from an imagined novel read in English translation):

In the dormitory above the bakery, Luka kept two clocks. The one on the wall told him when the ovens needed him. The small one by his bed was still set to home, six hours behind, and he checked it before he slept, working out who would be eating, who would be at school, whether his mother had closed the shutters yet. The other men laughed at him. By the second winter, three of them had bought small clocks of their own.

1. State what the subject brief says the two works in the individual oral must be, and give the weighting of the oral at SL and at HL. [4]

2. Explain why “family” is not yet a global issue, and rewrite it as an angle that could be used for Extracts A and B. [3]

3. In Extract A, explain how lines 3 and 4 present the cost of working abroad. Use quotations. [3]

4. Analyse how the final two lines of Extract A present the effect of separation on the family. [4]

5. Explain how the two clocks in Extract B present Luka’s situation. [3]

6. Analyse the effect of the last two sentences of Extract B. [4]

7. Two students write about Extract B:

• Student P: “The author uses soft ‘s’ sounds in ‘still set’ to create a hushed, private mood.”
• Student Q: “The two clocks act as a symbol of Luka’s divided life.”

Explain which claim is safer for a work studied in translation, and rewrite the weaker claim so that it is acceptable. [4]

8. For the translated work, a student considers three passages:

• X: Luka’s arrival, where the narrator states that he missed his family and explains his job.
• Y: Extract B.
• Z: a long description of the bakery’s machinery, with no reference to home.

Choose the best extract for an oral on the angle you wrote in Question 2. Justify your choice and explain why you reject the other two. [5]

9. A student says: “The clocks are important throughout the novel.” Assume that later in the novel, after his family stops writing, Luka resets the small clock to local time. Write an improved link from Extract B to the whole work and explain why it is stronger. [3]

10. Plan an individual oral on Extracts A and B. Give your angle, a thesis, a structure, two analytical points on each extract, one link to each whole work, and your main point of comparison. [10]

11. Write one comparative analytical paragraph on how Extracts A and B present the cost of separation. [8]

Answers

1. One work originally written in the language studied [1]; one work studied in translation [1]. Weighting: 30% at SL [1]; 20% at HL [1]. [4] Examiner insight: The pairing is fixed by the brief: two works from the same language cannot meet it, however strong the issue.

2. “Family” is a theme: it names a subject but no problem or tension to argue about [1]. An issue names a tension affecting many people in many places, such as economic migration dividing families [1]. As an angle: “How work abroad that keeps a family alive also keeps its members apart” – a question both extracts can answer [1]. [3] Examiner insight: An angle with an action (“keeps… apart”) gives every later point something to prove; a one-word theme leaves the oral descriptive.

3. The list “the roof, the school shoes, the new lawn” shows what the money from abroad provides [1]. The repetition of “buy” in “we cannot buy” turns the line: material gain is set against what money cannot replace [1]. The image of “the sound of his own feet” makes the loss physical and ordinary – the family misses his presence in the house, not a grand idea [1]. [3] Examiner insight: Strong answers explain the turn from the list to “cannot”; weak ones identify “repetition” and stop.

4. The daughter’s question “which country he is in” shows that the child’s knowledge of her father has shrunk to geography [1]. The speaker answers with a map, not words, which suggests there is no real answer to give [1]. The phrase “the blue between” makes the sea stand for the distance itself: the father is absent, and only the gap is shown [1]. The half-rhyme “in”/“between”, after the full rhymes earlier, leaves the poem feeling unresolved, like the separation [1]. [4] Examiner insight: Sound effects are fair evidence here because Extract A is read in its original language; the same point about the translated extract would need hedging.

5. The wall clock stands for work: it tells him “when the ovens needed him” [1]. The bedside clock, “still set to home”, shows that his thoughts and feelings stay with his family [1]. Together they show a divided life, lived in two places and two times at once [1]. [3] Examiner insight: Tying each clock to a quotation and then to the issue turns description into analysis.

6. “The other men laughed at him” first presents Luka’s habit as odd and private [1]. The time jump “By the second winter” shows how long the separation lasts [1]. The other men buying “small clocks of their own” shows that the experience is shared, widening one man’s feeling into a common one – the move that makes this a global issue [1]. The narrator does not explain the change, so the reader must infer the men’s loneliness from their actions [1]. [4] Examiner insight: The best answers see how the ending moves from the individual to the collective, which is exactly what a global-issue oral needs.

7. Student Q’s claim is safer: symbols and objects usually carry across languages [1]. Student P’s claim depends on sound, which in a translation may belong to the translator [1]. P also credits “the author” with a word-level choice without knowing the original wording [1]. Rewrite: “In this translation, the soft sounds of ‘still set’ create a hushed, private mood” – or build the point on the image of the clock instead [1]. [4] Examiner insight: Hedging is not weakness: a precise “in this translation” shows you understand how you are reading the work.

8. Choose Y (Extract B) [1]. It shows the issue through an image (the two clocks) rather than stating it [1]. It is dense enough for several points: the clocks, the laughter, the time jump and the men’s clocks [1]. Reject X because it states the feeling directly (“missed his family”), leaving little language to analyse [1]. Reject Z because it does not engage with the issue at all [1]. [5] Examiner insight: An extract that simply names the issue gives you less to analyse than one that shows it.

9. The original is vague: it names no moment and no development [1]. Improved link: “Later, when his family stops writing, Luka resets the small clock to local time, so the object that kept him connected becomes the sign that the connection has broken” [1]. It is stronger because it names a specific moment and shows how the same image develops the issue across the work [1]. [3] Examiner insight: One precise link that shows change beats several general claims that an image “recurs”.

10. Indicative content (any well-argued plan can earn credit):

• Angle stated as an issue, not a theme, e.g. “How work abroad that keeps a family alive also keeps its members apart” [1].
• Thesis with a claim and a difference: the poem speaks from the home that waits, the novel from the worker who left [1].
• A clear, stated structure (work by work, or point by point) [1].
• Extract A, point 1: the list and “we cannot buy” – gain set against loss [1].
• Extract A, point 2: “the blue between” and the unanswered question [1].
• Extract B, point 1: the two clocks as a divided life [1].
• Extract B, point 2: the other men’s clocks widening the issue [1].
• One specific link to the whole poetry collection (a named poem developing the same idea) [1].
• One specific link to the whole novel, e.g. the reset clock [1].
• Comparison explaining the difference in perspective, not just the shared subject [1].

[10] Examiner insight: A plan that gives both works equal depth leads to an oral that sounds argued rather than listed.

11. Model paragraph:

Both works measure separation in time and distance, but from opposite ends of the journey. The poem speaks from home: the call comes “before the dawn”, and the father exists for his daughter only as “the blue between” on a map. The novel speaks from abroad: Luka keeps his bedside clock “still set to home”, following his family’s day six hours behind his own. Where the poem shows what the money buys and what it “cannot buy”, the novel shows the private rituals a worker invents to stay close. Read together, the works present the same cost – presence traded for provision – felt on both sides of the gap.

Indicative creditworthy features:

• Opening claim that answers the issue [1].
• Embedded quotation from Extract A [1] with its effect explained [1].
• Embedded quotation from Extract B [1] with its effect explained [1].
• A clear point of difference (home vs abroad; waiting vs leaving) [1].
• Comparison woven with connectives (“Where…”, “Read together”) rather than two separate blocks [1].
• A closing sentence that returns to the global issue [1].

[8] Examiner insight: Woven comparison, with quotations built into your own sentences, separates strong responses from two separate commentaries.

Where marks are usually lost

• Naming a theme (“family”) as the issue and never narrowing it.
• Analysing sound or single words in the translated work without “in this translation”.
• Giving Extract A far more analysis than Extract B, or the reverse.
• Choosing an extract that states the issue outright, leaving nothing to analyse.
• Links to the whole work that name no specific moment.
• Stating that both works are “about” separation without explaining how they differ.
• Dropping in quotations without explaining their effect.
• Ending without returning to the issue named in the opening.

Next steps

• Revision notes
• Study guide
• Intertextuality practice
• Literature course hub
• Printable checklist
• All free 10-minute diagnostics
• Book a free trial class

Official syllabus

International Baccalaureate Organization, Diploma Programme Subject Brief, Language A: literature, first assessments for SL and HL 2021 (2019).