IB DP Language B – Human ingenuity Study Guide

This study guide teaches Human ingenuity, the third of the five prescribed themes in IB Diploma Programme Language B. It is aligned to the IB Diploma Programme Subject Brief: Language B, first assessment 2020, and covers the theme exactly as its content outline sets it out: the guiding principle, the optional recommended topics and the possible questions. Both SL and HL students study the theme; what changes between levels is the complexity of language you handle, not the theme. It follows the IB Language B subject brief for first assessment 2020, which remains the examined course until the new syllabus is first assessed in May 2029, so it applies to the 2026, 2027 and 2028 sessions.

Use it alongside the Human ingenuity revision notes for fast recall and the Human ingenuity practice questions for original passages with worked answers. For the whole course, see the Language B course hub, the printable checklist, the syllabus guide and the paper-by-paper exam preparation. The themes Identities and Sharing the planet have their own pages.

This page is in English and so are the model texts. Every task ends with a note on how to redo it in your target language, because that is where the marks are.

What this unit covers

Part of the brief	What you must be able to do	SL/HL
Guiding principle: explore the ways in which human creativity and innovation affect our world	Explain, in the target language, how a creation or invention changes people’s lives, for better and for worse	Both
Optional recommended topics: entertainment, artistic expressions, communication and media, technology, scientific innovation	Understand and produce texts on any of them	Both
Possible question: what can we learn about a culture through its artistic expression?	Read an artwork, craft or performance as evidence about the people who made it	Both
Possible question: how do the media change the way we relate to each other?	Argue about the social effects of media, with examples and a counterpoint	Both
Conceptual understandings: context, audience, purpose, meaning, variation	Say who a text is for, why it was made and how its language fits that	Both
Two literary works originally written in the target language	Link a studied work to the theme where it genuinely fits	HL only

Two words in the brief matter. The topics are “optional recommended” and the questions are “possible”. Your school chooses which topics to teach in depth, and an unseen text on this theme can come at creativity or innovation from any angle. Treat the list as a starting map, not a fence.

How the theme reaches the assessment

The brief does not tie any component to a single theme, so Human ingenuity can feed every component:

• Paper 1 (productive skills, 25%): one writing task from a choice of three, 30 marks. At HL the tasks require more complex language and structures, demand higher-order thinking, and come with a higher word range.
• Paper 2 (receptive skills, 50%): separate listening (25 marks, 25%) and reading (40 marks, 25%) sections.
• Individual oral (internal, 25%, 30 marks): at SL the stimulus is a visual image clearly relevant to one or more themes; at HL it is an excerpt from one of your two literary works.

Your teacher will share the assessment criteria, the question formats and the oral’s structure. This page does not guess at them.

The five recommended topics

For each topic: what it takes in, a vocabulary field to build (English headwords; find the target-language word, its gender or plural if your language has them, and one example sentence), and a question that pushes you past description.

Entertainment

Film, television, music, video games, festivals, sport as spectacle, streaming. Build: audience, performance, release, subscription, review, fan, live, genre. Push: who decides what counts as entertainment, and who pays for it?

Artistic expressions

Painting, sculpture, street art, architecture, dance, crafts, literature, traditional arts. Build: exhibition, heritage, craftsperson, commission, restore, preserve, symbol, interpret. Push: what does this art tell an outsider about the community’s values?

Communication and media

Newspapers, social media, advertising, messaging, podcasts, misinformation, press freedom. Build: source, headline, follower, share, reliable, bias, privacy, influence. Push: does this medium bring people closer, or only keep them connected?

Technology

Everyday devices, artificial intelligence, automation, transport, screen time, unequal access. Build: device, access, user, automate, update, replace, dependent, affordable. Push: who is left out when a technology spreads?

Scientific innovation

Medicine, space, energy, genetics, the ethical limits of research. Build: research, breakthrough, trial, laboratory, cure, side effect, risk, ethical. Push: who benefits first from a discovery, and who carries the risk?

The topics overlap with other themes. A new vaccine touches health and well-being (Identities); solar power touches the environment (Sharing the planet). Under Human ingenuity the focus is the act of creating: the idea, how it was made, and what it changes.

Worked example 1: learning about a culture from its art

Original text written for Marlbridge:

Every spring, the potters of a small hill town paint their jars with the same blue fish. Nobody remembers who drew the first one. Young potters may add their own details (a wave, a boat, a name) but the fish must stay. “Without the fish,” one potter says, “it is just a jar.”

Step 1: describe precisely. Jars, a blue fish, every spring, a rule that the fish stays, freedom to add small details.

Step 2: infer. The community values continuity: the pattern outlives its inventor. It also allows individual creativity inside the tradition. The fish might point to a history linked to water, but the text does not say so, so present that as a guess (“perhaps”, “it may be that”).

Step 3: answer the question. The art shows a culture that balances tradition with personal expression. The quotation “it is just a jar” shows that the shared symbol, not the object, carries the value.

Step 4: move it into your target language. Learn the target-language frames for “this suggests that”, “this shows that the community values”, “one possible reason is” and “however, the text does not say”. These four frames turn a description into an interpretation in any subject area.

A weak answer stops at Step 1. The possible question asks what we learn, so the marks sit in Steps 2 and 3.

Worked example 2: how media change relationships

Build a grid before you write: point, example, effect, counterpoint.

Point	Example	Effect	Counterpoint
Messaging keeps families in daily contact across countries	A grandmother watches a school play on a video call	Closeness despite distance	A screen is not a visit; not every grandparent has a device or the skills
Short-video platforms reward instant reactions	Comments appear within seconds of a post	Disagreements become sharper and faster	The same platforms help scattered groups, such as speakers of a minority language, find each other

Model paragraph (original, in English): “Messaging apps have made distance matter less. A grandmother in one country can now watch her grandson’s school play live from another. However, a video call is not the same as sitting in the hall, and those without a smartphone are left out entirely. The media have not simply brought us closer; they have changed what closeness means.”

In your target language, check the connectors you use for contrast (however, whereas, although) and result (so, as a result). Some take a particular verb form or word order; learn each with a full example sentence.

Language this theme keeps asking for

Function	English model	What to check in your target language
Describe a process	“The statues were scanned, then printed.”	How the passive or an impersonal construction is formed, and whether an active form is more natural
Cause and effect	“As a result, fewer people buy newspapers.”	Connectors that change verb form or word order
Before and now	“People used to write letters; now they send voice notes.”	A habitual past tense or an equivalent phrase
Speculate	“If robots did the cleaning, we would have more free time.”	Conditional forms; a subjunctive or hypothetical mood if your language has one
Evaluate	“The benefits outweigh the costs because…”	Precise adjectives and hedging words
Recommend	“The council should fund the project.”	Modal verbs or their equivalents

At SL, accuracy with these structures comes first. At HL, the brief expects you to extend range and complexity, so vary the structures and use less common vocabulary precisely.

Paper 1: planning a response on this theme

Original prompt written for Marlbridge: your town museum has opened a room where visitors view famous paintings through virtual-reality headsets. Write a review for your school magazine giving your view of whether this is a good way to experience art.

Plan with the brief’s conceptual understandings:

• Context: a school magazine, after your visit. Audience: other students. Purpose: inform and persuade.
• Shape: a title; an opening that puts the reader in the headset; what works (you can walk “inside” a painting, and the room is accessible to people who cannot travel); what is lost (real scale, texture, the shared visit); a clear recommendation.
• Register: lively and semi-formal. Addressing classmates directly suits a review; slang that a teacher-editor would cut does not.
• Check: does every paragraph serve the task and the text type? At HL, check the word range in the instructions.

Paper 2: unseen texts on this theme

• Before reading, predict vocabulary from the title and any image.
• Identify the text type and its purpose before the detail.
• On innovation texts, watch dates, numbers, negatives and words like “not yet” or “only”. They often decide whether a statement is right.
• Watch for false friends: target-language words that look like English words but mean something else.
• In listening, track who holds which opinion; innovation stories often set an inventor’s claims against a critic’s doubts.

The individual oral

SL. Images on this theme might show a mural, a crowded cinema, a robot in a hospital, someone filming a concert on a phone. Work in four moves: describe (who, what, where), interpret (why it was made, what it shows), connect (to the theme and to a target-language culture you have studied) and judge (your view, with a reason).

HL. Your stimulus is an excerpt from one of your two literary works. If either work deals with invention, art, media or science, mark those passages now and build theme vocabulary around them.

Common errors

• Describing an invention or artwork without saying what it changes. The guiding principle is about effect.
• Treating the five topics as a closed list and freezing on an unseen text about, say, architecture or robotics.
• Writing only praise for technology. One counterpoint makes an argument credible.
• Translating English structures word for word, such as forcing a passive where your target language prefers an active or impersonal form.
• Leaning on vague words (“thing”, “good”, “bad”) instead of the specific nouns you built above.
• Writing an essay when the task asks for a review, blog or speech. Text type is part of the task.
• In the oral, listing what is in the image and never reaching an opinion.

Next, test your recall with the revision notes and work through the practice questions.

Official syllabus

International Baccalaureate Organization, Diploma Programme Subject Brief, Language B, first assessment 2020 (2018). The theme wording, recommended topics, possible questions, components, marks and weightings on this page come from its content outline and assessment outline.