IB Study Guide
Hamlet, The Great Gatsby, Heart of Darkness, the works in translation, and the poets your teacher actually picks. Full public-domain texts for IB English A: Literature SL and HL, with margin notes that explain what's actually going on. Built for IB students who want to nail the IO and the comparative essay.
DP1–DP2 · Ages 16–18 · International Baccalaureate (worldwide)
Quick primer: IB English A: Literature is the literature-only English course in the IB Diploma Programme. It runs across DP1 and DP2 (the two years before university, roughly ages 16 to 18). One IB syllabus, taught at over 5,000 schools worldwide. Two levels: Standard Level (SL) reads at least 9 works; Higher Level (HL) reads at least 13. Course assessment was overhauled in 2021 (first exams 2022).
The course is organised around three Areas of Exploration: Readers, Writers and Texts (literary elements and the act of reading); Time and Space (cultural and historical context); and Intertextuality: Connecting Texts (works in dialogue with each other). Your teacher chooses works from the IB's Prescribed Reading List that hit each Area, and you study them across the two years.
Assessment is a mix of internal (oral, 30% of grade at SL, 20% at HL) and external papers. Paper 1 is a guided literary analysis on unseen text(s). Paper 2 is a comparative essay on two studied works. HL students also write a 1,200–1,500 word essay on one studied work. The Individual Oral (the IO) is 15 minutes recorded, where you compare a global issue across two works (one in translation, one originally in English). It's the single most weighted assessment at SL.
IB DP courses are designed and assessed by the IB itself. Same syllabus, same examiners, same global November and May exam sessions wherever you take them. Two levels: Standard Level (SL, 150 hours, 9+ works) and Higher Level (HL, 240 hours, 13+ works).
Pick the board your school uses. Don’t know it? Check the front cover of one of your past papers; the spec code is printed there.
SL: one unseen literary passage (poetry or prose) with a guiding question; you write a single literary analysis. HL: two unseen passages (one prose, one poetry) with guiding questions; you analyse both. Closed-book and unseen, this paper tests your close-reading instincts: form, structure, voice, technique. The Areas of Exploration framing matters more than memorised content.
A choice of four general questions, of which you answer one by comparing two works you've studied (chosen by you on the day, from the works you've read across the course). Both works must be appropriate to the question. Closed-book; you cannot bring the works into the exam. The essay rewards genuinely comparative thinking, not parallel summary.
A formal academic essay on one of your studied works, developed from a line of inquiry of your choice (subject to teacher approval). Unlike the timed papers, this is written across the course and submitted in DP2. The strongest HL essays are precise, argued and tied to one of the three Areas of Exploration.
A 10-minute prepared oral examining how a global issue (you choose) is presented through two works you've studied: one originally written in English, one in translation. Followed by 5 minutes of questions from your teacher. Recorded and externally moderated. The IO is the highest-stakes assessment at SL; do not under-prepare.
Works that appear most often on IB English A: Literature reading lists worldwide. Strong choices for Paper 2 (comparative essay) and the IO. All in the public domain, with full text here.
William Shakespeare
The most-set Shakespeare on IB English A: Literature reading lists worldwide. Revenge, performance, mortality, madness. Reliable IO and Paper 2 anchor for any global issue around identity, power, or art.
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Fitzgerald's Jazz Age tragedy on class, longing and the American dream. The most-cited 20th-century novel on IB syllabuses. Pairs cleanly with almost any Paper 2 prompt.
Joseph Conrad
Conrad's framed novella on imperialism, language and moral collapse. A near-universal IB pick for the Time and Space area: post-colonial readings, translation studies, and the global issue of cultural authority.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Dostoevsky's philosophical novel of guilt and redemption. The most-cited work in translation on IB English A reading lists. Pairs with almost any global issue from morality to alienation.
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
Shelley's framed Gothic novel. Creator-creation, isolation, the ethics of science. A consistent Paper 2 favourite across schools.
Homer
Homer's epic in translation. Frequently chosen for the Intertextuality area: the foundational text behind hundreds of later works. Worth reading whole, not just the famous episodes.
Oscar Wilde
Wilde's only novel: aestheticism, decadence, Gothic doubling. A frequent Paper 2 choice for art-and-life and identity prompts.
Geoffrey Chaucer
Chaucer's Middle English narrative cycle. Common on IB English schools willing to wrestle with the language; the General Prologue alone is a teachable masterclass in social satire.
The works in translation requirement is central at both SL and HL. These are the most commonly chosen public-domain works in translation on IB syllabuses, anchored in Russian, French and Spanish literary traditions.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
The most-set work in translation on IB syllabuses. The Garnett, Pevear/Volokhonsky and Ready translations are all widely used; check which your school adopts.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Dostoevsky's last and longest novel. The Grand Inquisitor chapter alone is a frequent IO global-issue anchor for faith, freedom and authority.
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
Cervantes's foundational meta-novel. The Intertextuality area's anchor text: nearly every later European novel is in conversation with it.
Homer
Homer's epic. The Wilson, Fagles and Lattimore translations are all commonly used; reading more than one passage in different translations is a strong IO move on the global issue of translation itself.
Alexandre Dumas
Dumas's revenge novel: long but propulsive. Pairs cleanly with Hamlet for IO global issues on justice, identity and self-fashioning.
Shakespeare is on most IB reading lists. These are the plays most commonly chosen worldwide. Hamlet remains the runaway favourite.
William Shakespeare
The most-set Shakespeare on IB reading lists worldwide. Use it as your IO anchor or Paper 2 backbone.
William Shakespeare
Race, jealousy, manipulation. Strong choice for IO global issues around outsiders, language and self-deception.
William Shakespeare
Power, family, blindness, the storm. The deepest tragedy and the most ambitious Paper 2 pick if you can sustain a long argument on it.
William Shakespeare
Ambition, fate, guilt. The shortest of the major tragedies and an accessible Paper 2 pick that doesn't shortchange you on depth.
William Shakespeare
Power, magic, forgiveness. Frequently chosen for post-colonial and Intertextuality readings; Caliban-as-resistance has been an IO staple for two decades.
William Shakespeare
Disguise, gender and longing. The strongest IB pick if you want a comedy that rewards genuinely close reading.
Poets most commonly chosen on the IB Prescribed Reading List. Strong both for Paper 1 (unseen analysis training) and as Paper 2 / IO works. Reading the full collections sharpens your unseen-poetry instincts.
Robert Frost
Frost's collection. "The Road Not Taken", "Birches", "Out, Out". Frequently set on IB syllabuses for accessible-yet-deep close reading practice.
Emily Dickinson
Dickinson's compressed lyrics. Standard IB syllabus poet and a Paper 1 unseen mainstay; reading the full collection trains your ear for compression.
John Keats
Keats's odes and longer poems. A frequent IB Romantic poetry choice; the odes work cleanly for IO global issues on art, mortality and beauty.
William Blake
Blake's paired Innocence and Experience. Compact, dense, ideal for sustained Paper 2 comparison or IO use.
William Wordsworth
Wordsworth and Coleridge's joint 1798 collection. Foundational text of English Romanticism; appears on IB reading lists worldwide.
The Individual Oral is 30% of your grade at SL and 20% at HL. Many students treat it as the warm-up to the written papers, then realise in DP2 that nearly a third of the grade depends on a 15-minute recording. Start IO prep in DP1: pick your global issue, select your two works, draft three or four versions of the 10-minute talk, and rehearse with a teacher long before the recording. Don't write the IO; speak it.
"Power" is too abstract for a strong IO. "How language enacts and resists colonial power in Heart of Darkness and Translations" is specific enough to argue. The IB rewards precision: the more focused your global issue, the easier it is to develop a sustained argument across both works in 10 minutes.
Paper 2 asks you to compare two works on a general prompt (love, time, identity, freedom, the nation, etc.). The most common mistake is to write Work A in paragraphs 1–2, then Work B in paragraphs 3–4, with a token comparison at the end. The strongest essays compare across paragraphs: each paragraph holds both works in tension on a specific point. Plan your essay this way before you start writing.
Paper 1 gives you unseen text(s) with a guiding question. The strongest analyses lead with form (genre, structure, voice, syntactic patterning) and then move into thematic interpretation. Most students invert this and start with theme; examiners are bored of "this poem is about loss". Begin with what the writer is doing on the page.
The HL Essay is 1,200–1,500 words on one work. The mistake is to pick a broad topic ("the role of women in Heart of Darkness") and write a survey. The IB rubric specifically rewards "a focused, well-defined line of inquiry". "How does Conrad's use of frame narration enact and undermine the imperial gaze?" is a line of inquiry. "Imperialism in Heart of Darkness" isn't.
For works in translation, the IB explicitly considers translation choices fair game. The strongest IO and Paper 2 answers acknowledge that you're reading a translation: "The Pevear and Volokhonsky translation renders Raskolnikov's interior monologue with a deliberate jaggedness absent in the Garnett...". You don't have to be a translator to make this move; you just have to know which translation you're using.
Two separate courses, both at SL and HL. English A: Literature studies only literary works (novels, plays, poetry, short stories). English A: Language and Literature splits the syllabus between literary works and non-literary text types (advertisements, speeches, news articles, film, graphic novels). Most universities accept both for English entry; choose based on which interests you more, not which is "easier". They have similar pass rates.
Three external components and one internal. Paper 1 (guided literary analysis on unseen passages) is 35% at both levels. Paper 2 (comparative essay on two studied works) is 35% SL, 25% HL. The Individual Oral is 30% SL, 20% HL. The HL Essay (1,200–1,500 words on one work) is 20% HL only. The IB grades on a 1–7 scale. Most universities want a 5 or above for English-related entry.
At SL, at least 9 works across the course. At HL, at least 13. Both must include a balance of works in translation, works originally written in the school's language A, free choice, all three Areas of Exploration, and works from at least three different literary forms (novel, play, poetry, short story, prose other than fiction). Your teacher picks the specific works from the IB's Prescribed Reading List, which contains thousands of authors.
The IO is a 15-minute recorded oral assessment: a 10-minute prepared talk where you compare two works (one originally in English, one in translation) on a global issue you've chosen, followed by 5 minutes of teacher questions. It's the single most weighted assessment at SL (30% of the grade). The recording is moderated externally. You bring two extracts (40 lines max each) of your chosen works into the room.
Three lenses introduced in 2019: (1) Readers, Writers and Texts: how literary elements (form, structure, language) shape meaning; (2) Time and Space: how works are situated in cultural and historical contexts; (3) Intertextuality, Connecting Texts: how works speak to each other across periods and traditions. Each studied work should sit primarily in one of the three areas, and your reading list should hit all three.
Most of them, yes. The IB's Prescribed Reading List is enormous and includes contemporary works, but the most-set works on it are mostly public domain: Hamlet, The Great Gatsby, Heart of Darkness, Crime and Punishment, Anna Karenina, The Brothers Karamazov, Frankenstein, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Dickinson, Whitman, Frost. Some HL syllabuses include more recent works (Beloved, Wide Sargasso Sea, modern translations) which require a school or library copy. Chat your book hosts the full public-domain reading list with AI margin notes.
IB has two annual exam sessions: May (Northern Hemisphere schools) and November (Southern Hemisphere schools). Paper 1 and Paper 2 are sat on consecutive days within each session. The IO is recorded earlier in DP2 (typically January to March in the May session). The HL Essay is submitted electronically by your school in March.
Most UK universities require a 5 (HL or SL depending on the course) for English Literature, Journalism or related humanities entry. Top US universities don't usually require a specific subject score but use the overall IB diploma score. Australia and Canada vary by university. Check each programme's specific requirements; most publish IB conversion tables alongside their A-Level / AP requirements.
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