IB MYP Individuals and Societies: Source-Evaluation Exam Preparation

The full syllabus guide explains that the Investigating task explicitly asks students to evaluate source material’s value and limitations, not just summarise it. These notes focus specifically on building that skill, alongside the subject overview and assessment revision notes already on the site.

Why source evaluation is a distinct, separately tested skill

Extracting facts from a source (what does it say?) is a different skill from evaluating a source (how useful or reliable is it, and for what purpose?). The Investigating task specifically tests the second skill, worth 26 marks across criteria A and B. A common preparation mistake is practising only source summary – being able to state what a source says – without practising the separate judgement of why that source is or is not useful for a specific research question.

A repeatable framework for evaluating a source

For any source, ask four questions:

1. Origin – who created this source, and when? A source’s creator and date shape what it can plausibly tell you.
2. Purpose – why was this source created, and for whom? A source created to persuade will differ from one created to inform or record.
3. Value – given its origin and purpose, what can this source genuinely tell a researcher investigating a specific question?
4. Limitation – given the same origin and purpose, what can this source NOT reliably tell a researcher, or where might it be biased, incomplete or unrepresentative?

Crucially, value and limitation are usually two sides of the same fact about origin and purpose, not two separate lists – a source’s value and its limitation typically come from the same underlying feature.

Worked practice example

Source: a government press release announcing a new public transport investment, issued the week before a national election.

• Origin: the governing party’s own communications office, issued shortly before an election.
• Purpose: to publicise a policy achievement, likely to build public support ahead of the election.
• Value: it is directly useful for establishing the official, stated details of the policy itself – what was announced, when, and by whom – since a government press release is a primary, dated record of the announcement’s actual content.
• Limitation: because it was issued so close to an election by the party responsible for the policy, it is likely to present the investment in the most favourable possible light, and is not a reliable source for judging the policy’s actual effectiveness or genuine public reception – for that, a researcher would need an independent source.

Notice that the same fact (who issued it, and when) generates both the value (a primary record of official policy content) and the limitation (a biased source for judging effectiveness or reception). This is the pattern to practise: one fact about origin and purpose, reasoned through to both a value and a limitation.

Comparing two sources

The Investigating task can also ask you to compare two sources’ usefulness for a given research question. Structure a comparison around a shared criterion – for example, comparing which of two sources is more useful specifically for understanding public reaction to an event, rather than a general, unfocused “source A is better than source B.” Explicitly naming what each source can and cannot tell you about the specific research angle in question, then weighing them against each other on that same angle, produces a stronger comparative answer than evaluating each source in isolation and only briefly comparing at the end.

How to approach it

Practise the origin-purpose-value-limitation framework on a genuinely wide range of source types – government documents, news reports, personal accounts, statistics, images, maps – since the Investigating task can draw on any of history, geography or integrated humanities, whichever your school’s on-screen examination subject actually is. Build the habit of asking “what does knowing who made this, and why, tell me about how much I can trust it for this specific question?” every time you work with a source in class, not only in dedicated exam preparation, since this reflex is exactly what the task rewards.

Self-test

1. What are the four questions in the origin-purpose-value-limitation framework?
2. Why do a source’s value and limitation often come from the same underlying fact about it?
3. In the worked government press release example, what makes the source valuable, and what makes it limited?
4. Why is a general “source A is better than source B” a weaker comparative answer than one focused on a specific research angle?

Answers: 1. Origin (who created it, and when), purpose (why was it created, and for whom), value (what can it tell a researcher, given its origin and purpose), and limitation (what can it not reliably tell a researcher, given the same origin and purpose). 2. Because the same feature of a source – who created it and why – typically explains both what it is well-placed to tell you reliably and what it is poorly placed to tell you reliably; they are usually two readings of the same fact, not two unrelated observations. 3. Value: it is a primary, dated record of the official policy announcement’s actual content. Limitation: because it was issued by the responsible party shortly before an election, it is likely to present the policy favourably and is not reliable for judging the policy’s actual effectiveness or genuine public reception. 4. Because usefulness depends on what specific question is being asked – a source can be more useful than another for one research angle and less useful for a different one, so comparing them against a named, specific angle produces a more defensible and precise judgement than an unfocused overall ranking.

Official syllabus

International Baccalaureate Organization, Middle Years Programme Subject Brief – Individuals and Societies, from 2014, (c) 2021 – the same source already cited by the full syllabus guide, which first described the Investigating task’s source-evaluation demand. The worked government press release example above is an original example written for this resource, not a reproduction of any specific official eAssessment source or question.