IB MYP Design: The Design Cycle -- Practice Questions

These are original questions written for Marlbridge, modelling the kind of understanding MYP Design’s ePortfolio moderation actually requires. They are not reproduced IB material – the IB holds copyright in its own subject guides and exemplars. Use these alongside official exemplars available through your school.

Related: Design Cycle study guide and revision notes.

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Section A

1. Name the four stages of the design cycle in order. [4]

2. Which assessment criterion corresponds to the “specification” stage? [1]

3. Is the design cycle followed once per year, or repeatedly across projects? [1]

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Section B

4. A student completes a strong, well-documented Stage A and Stage B for a project, but then submits only photographs of the finished prototype with no build log, and a one-line evaluation stating “it worked.”

(a) Identify which two stages are poorly evidenced in this submission. [2] (b) Explain the likely consequence for the student’s overall ePortfolio mark, even though Stages A and B are strong. [3]

5. A design situation asks students to design a solution for organising cables behind a desk.

(a) Describe, in outline, what genuine Stage A work on this situation would involve, beyond simply starting to sketch ideas. [3] (b) Describe what Stage D evaluation of the finished solution should include, beyond confirming that cables are now tidy. [3]

6. Explain why “revising the design cycle” and “revising the four assessment criteria” are, in practice, the same task viewed from two different angles. [3]

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Section C

7. A student argues: “I only need to properly learn the design cycle once, at the start of the course – after that, each project is just about making a good final product.” Explain why this view misunderstands how the design cycle and its assessment actually work, using the certificate and DP-pathway context where relevant. [6]

8. A student’s Stage D evaluation for a wearable fitness-tracking prototype states: “Everyone who tried it said they liked it, and it looks good, so the project was a success.” Explain what is missing from this evaluation relative to what Stage D specifically requires, and rewrite it in outline to fix the gap. [6]

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Worked answers

1. Inquiring and analysing, developing ideas, creating the solution, evaluating. [4]

2. Criterion B: Developing ideas. [1]

3. Repeatedly – it is the working structure applied to every design project, not a one-off sequence completed once. [1]

4. (a) Stage C (creating the solution) is poorly evidenced, since there is no build log recording the sequence followed or any changes made along the way – only photographs of the finished result. Stage D (evaluating) is also poorly evidenced, since “it worked” is not an objective test against the original specification. [2] (b) Because the ePortfolio is assessed as a complete design folder across all four criteria, strong evidence for Stages A and B cannot compensate for thin or missing evidence at Stages C and D – each criterion is assessed on its own evidence. The overall mark would likely be pulled down significantly by low marks on Criteria C and D, even though Criteria A and B might score well, since a genuinely strong ePortfolio needs documented evidence across all four criteria, not just some of them. [3]

5. (a) Genuine Stage A work would investigate the actual problem before sketching solutions: for example, observing or surveying how cables currently become tangled, researching existing cable-management products already on the market, and analysing what a workable solution would specifically need to achieve (accommodating a certain number of cables, fitting a specific desk space, being easy to install without tools) – rather than jumping straight from the general problem statement to a first design idea. [3] (b) Stage D evaluation should test the solution against the original specification’s individual points – for example, does it hold the specified number of cables, does it fit the intended desk space, is it as easy to install as targeted – report honest results even where they fall short, and identify specific areas for improvement, rather than a general confirmation that cables now look tidy. [3]

6. Each of the four assessment criteria is built to assess evidence from exactly one design-cycle stage: Criterion A assesses the problem/inquiry stage, Criterion B the specification/idea-development stage, Criterion C the build stage, and Criterion D the test/evaluation stage. Learning what strong evidence looks like for each design-cycle stage is therefore identical to learning what strong evidence looks like for the corresponding criterion – there is no separate body of knowledge for “the design cycle” that exists apart from what the four criteria already describe; they are two descriptions of the same underlying process. [3]

7. This view misunderstands the design cycle in at least three ways. First, the cycle’s four stages are assessed fresh on every project, not once at the start of the course, so weak documentation habits established early (if never corrected) tend to resurface and cost marks on every subsequent project, not just the first one. Second, the ePortfolio’s marks are earned through evidence of the process at each stage, not through the quality of the final product alone – a genuinely excellent final product with thin process documentation for the inquiry and specification stages still scores poorly on Criteria A and B, regardless of how good the finished item is. Third, this habit of properly documenting inquiry, specification and honest evaluation directly prepares a student for DP Design Technology, which relies on the same cyclical process – a student who never properly internalises the design cycle at MYP level, treating it as a one-off unit rather than a repeated working method, arrives at DP with a real skills gap to make up, not just a grading disadvantage at MYP level. [6]

8. Missing from this evaluation is any objective, measurable test against the original specification, any honest account of limitations, and any specific explanation of the solution’s impact on its intended user or client – “everyone liked it” and “it looks good” are subjective impressions, not evidence of tested performance against defined criteria. A stronger version would read something like: “Against the specification’s target of tracking step count within 5% accuracy compared with a reference device over a one-week trial, the prototype achieved a measured 8% average deviation – outside the target range. User feedback indicated the wrist strap was comfortable for extended wear, but the display was reported as difficult to read in direct sunlight by 3 of 5 testers, identifying a specific area for improvement in the next iteration.” This reports honest, specification-based, measurable results and identifies a concrete area for improvement, rather than relying on general impressions of likeability and appearance. [6]

Official syllabus

International Baccalaureate Organization, Middle Years Programme Subject Brief – Design, from 2014, (c) 2015 – the same source cited by the study guide and revision notes. Verified 2026-09-06.