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IB MYP Year 5 · Language & Literature · Unit 2: MYP Assessment Skills | Command Terms & the e-Assessment
📋 What You Will Learn
- Define command term and explain how each one sets a precise contract between the examiner and the student
- Distinguish between fourteen MYP command terms — analyse, evaluate, compare, contrast, explain, identify, interpret, discuss, comment on, justify, to what extent, describe, examine, synthesize — and state what each demands of your response
- Understand the shape of the MYP English Language & Literature e-assessment: its tasks, text types, and timing
- Apply a step-by-step exam technique — unpacking the command term, linking to assessment criteria, planning, and using evidence — before writing a single sentence
- Rewrite weak answers that ignore the command term into responses that earn marks at the higher descriptors
- Turn a command term and an unseen text into a timed micro-plan, using a worked model as a benchmark
🔍 Guiding Question If two students read the same text and are handed the same question, why can one score at the highest descriptor while the other scores nothing — when the difference is a single word in the question?
🌍 Why This Matters Every mark in the MYP e-assessment flows from whether your response does the thing the command term asks. In the real world, too, a lawyer who is told to evaluate evidence but instead only describes it loses the case; an engineer asked to compare two systems but who just identifies each one has answered the wrong question. Understanding command terms is not just exam craft — it is the core academic skill of matching your thinking to the question in front of you. In the global context of Fairness & Development , it is also about equity: command terms are the shared language that lets every student, everywhere, know exactly what is expected.
1 · What Is a Command Term?
📖 Definition — Command Term A command term (also called an action verb ) is the key verb in an exam question or task that tells you precisely what cognitive operation to perform on the material. It defines the type of thinking you must produce, not just the topic you must write about.
Think of a command term as a contract. The examiner promises that if you do the exact operation named, you can earn the marks available. If you do a different operation — even a harder or more impressive one — you may earn nothing. A student who evaluates when asked to describe is answering the wrong question. A student who only describes when asked to evaluate is doing the same.
In MYP Language & Literature, command terms connect directly to the four assessment criteria :
- Criterion A — Analysing (max. 8): understanding, interpretation, and analysis of texts
- Criterion B — Organising (max. 8): structure, development, and use of organisational features
- Criterion C — Producing text (max. 8): writing in an appropriate style, voice, and form
- Criterion D — Using language (max. 8): accuracy, range, and effect of language choices
Command terms in the e-assessment analytical tasks primarily target Criterion A . In the writing task, they shape what your text must do , targeting Criteria C and D .
2 · The Fourteen Command Terms — Full Reference Table
Study this table so that you can decode any question in under ten seconds. The yellow column — "what a response must do" — is the examiner's minimum expectation for full marks.
| Command Term | Precise Definition | What your response must do | Common failure mode |
|---|---|---|---|
| Identify | Locate and name a specific feature, element, or example. | Name it accurately and indicate where/how it appears. Brief; no extended analysis required. | Writing long explanations when a precise label suffices — or, conversely, writing too vaguely to name anything specific. |
| Describe | Give a detailed account of features, qualities, or events. | Present the what in clear, organised detail. No evaluation or argument required. | Adding unsolicited opinion ("and this is effective because…") — that is analysis, not description. |
| Explain | Make clear why or how something is the case by giving reasons, causes, or mechanisms. | Provide the why or how — link the feature to its cause or function. Go beyond description. | Re-describing instead of explaining; never stating the reason or mechanism. |
| Interpret | Draw meaning from evidence; say what something suggests, implies, or signifies. | Make an inference from textual evidence and state what it means in context. Reading between the lines is |