The IB Extended Essay's five assessment criteria, criterion by criterion

The Extended Essay is a big piece of work, and the temptation is to judge it by how it feels — dense, well-researched, finished. But the EE isn't marked on feel. It's marked against five assessment criteria, lettered A to E, each scored on its own and then added up. Understanding what each criterion actually rewards is the difference between an essay that looks impressive and one that scores.

How the five criteria fit together

The EE is assessed out of 34 marks, split across five criteria, with the total mapping onto grade bands from A down to E. Each criterion measures something distinct, and — this is the point students miss — marks are won or lost per criterion. A superb argument with a weak criterion E still leaves those engagement marks on the table. It's the same logic that runs through all IB internal and moderated marking: the criteria are the instrument.

Criterion by criterion

• A — Focus and method: a sharp, well-defined research question and a sound approach to answering it. A vague or oversized question quietly caps everything downstream.
• B — Knowledge and understanding: genuine command of your subject and its sources, used in the service of the argument rather than displayed for its own sake.
• C — Critical thinking: usually the heaviest criterion — analysis, discussion and evaluation, not summary. This is where the essay either argues or merely reports.
• D — Presentation: structure, layout and referencing that follow academic convention. Marks here are among the easiest to secure and the saddest to lose.
• E — Engagement: assessed through the RPPF — the Reflections on Planning and Progress Form — where your reflections show genuine intellectual ownership of the process.

The EE isn't one mark out of many. It's five separate judgements — and the fastest way to lift your grade is to find the weakest of the five and fix it.

Where marks quietly leak

Two criteria catch students out most. Criterion A, because a research question that's too broad makes sustained argument impossible — you end up surveying rather than answering. And criterion E, because the RPPF gets left to the last night and reads as an afterthought, when it should show real reflection on the choices you made. Neither loss is about ability. Both are about not reading the criterion closely enough. The same care over criteria pays off in the shorter TOK essay, which is likewise marked against a published rubric.

Mark against all five, then fix the lowest

Because the EE is scored per criterion, useful feedback returns per-criterion information— not "this is a solid essay," but "criterion C is doing the work, criterion A's question is too broad, the RPPF is thin." That's what tells you where the next draft should go.

That's the loop Mark gives Extended Essay feedback to close: upload the five criteria and your draft, and he returns a mark per criterion with the quoted line as evidence — showing you exactly which of the five is holding your grade down. Fix that one, mark again, and let the weakest criterion move.