IB Philosophy HL common mistakes
IB Philosophy HL · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
In the Core theme essay on 'Being human', the candidate answers the question by summarising what several philosophers think about the self (e.g. a paragraph on Descartes, then Hume, then Sartre) without ever stating and defending their own position on the question actually asked.
Candidates transfer a 'describe the theories' revision habit into an exam that rewards argument. The question stem is read as a prompt to display knowledge, and the taught content is organised by thinker rather than by issue, so the essay drifts into exposition.
What to do instead
Before writing, convert the question into a one-sentence thesis that takes a side (e.g. 'Personal identity is better explained by psychological continuity than by bodily continuity'). Put that thesis in the introduction, give each body paragraph a claim that supports or qualifies it, and use named philosophers as evidence inside your own argument rather than as paragraph headings. Reserve the final paragraph for weighing the strongest objection to your thesis.
In the Aesthetics essay, the candidate treats 'beauty' and 'art' as interchangeable and evaluates artworks only by emotional response, so the essay never distinguishes judgements of taste from judgements about artistic value or addresses the subjectivity/objectivity question the prompt raises.
Everyday usage conflates the two, and the syllabus concepts (taste, aesthetic experience, art and representation, the role of intention) are abstract enough that candidates fall back on personal reaction. They also lack a worked example to anchor the distinction.
What to do instead
Build a two-column distinction before writing: judgements of beauty (typically about perceptual form and pleasure) versus judgements of artistic value (typically about achievement, meaning, technique, context). Anchor the essay in one or two concrete works you know well and can describe from memory, then use them to test whether the judgement is subjective or claims universal assent, citing Hume's standard of taste or Kant's disinterested pleasure only where the argument needs them.
In the Epistemology essay, the candidate defines knowledge as 'justified true belief' and then critiques Gettier cases without first explaining what justification is meant to do, so the argument against JTB is asserted rather than established, and the candidate never considers a response such as reliabilism or virtue epistemology.
Gettier is the most memorable item in the unit, and candidates reproduce the counterexample as a set piece. They have not practised reconstructing the JTB analysis premise by premise, so the critique has nothing precise to attack.
What to do instead
Write the JTB analysis as three numbered conditions plus the implicit 'no false lemmas' assumption, then show exactly which condition each Gettier-style case violates. Follow with at least one live response (e.g. adding a fourth condition, or replacing justification with reliable belief formation) and assess whether it survives a fresh counterexample you construct yourself.
In the Ethics essay, the candidate applies a normative theory to a dilemma by listing what a utilitarian, a Kantian and a virtue ethicist would each say, then concludes 'it depends on your perspective', without ever committing to a judgement or testing the theories against a hard case.
The 'compare the theories' structure feels safe and is easy to revise, and candidates fear that committing to a view will be marked wrong. They also confuse balance with neutrality.
What to do instead
Choose the theory you find most defensible, apply it to the dilemma in detail, then present the strongest objection from a rival theory and answer it. End with a qualified judgement ('act utilitarianism gives the right answer here only if we accept X, which I think we should not, because...'). Balance means engaging the opposition, not refusing to decide.
In Philosophy and contemporary society, the candidate discusses a live issue (e.g. algorithmic decision-making, surveillance, climate obligations) purely in empirical or journalistic terms, citing statistics and current events with no philosophical framework, and never identifies the underlying normative or conceptual question.
The topic invites description, and candidates know more about the news than about the theory. They also assume that a contemporary example is self-evidently philosophical.
What to do instead
State the philosophical question explicitly in the first paragraph (e.g. 'Is it a violation of autonomy to be profiled without consent, even when outcomes are accurate?'). Then bring one framework (Kantian autonomy, Mill's harm principle, Rawlsian fairness, virtue ethics) to bear on the case, and use empirical detail only as evidence inside that argument. Keep the case brief; the marks are in the analysis.
In Philosophy of religion, the candidate presents the problem of evil or a cosmological argument as a list of 'for' and 'against' points and treats 'God' as unproblematic, so the essay never specifies which concept of God is at stake (omnipotent, omniscient, perfectly good, personal) and the objection lands against a target the theist need not accept.
Textbook summaries separate arguments from the concept of God they presuppose. Candidates reproduce the summary format and skip the definitional work that makes the argument valid or invalid.
What to do instead
Begin by fixing the concept of God the argument requires, then show how the objection bears on that specific concept. For the problem of evil, distinguish logical from evidential versions and assess a defence (free will, soul-making, sceptical theism) against each. For cosmological arguments, state whether the conclusion establishes a necessary being, a first cause, or the God of worship, and argue about the gap.
In Philosophy of science, the candidate describes Popper's falsificationism and Kuhn's paradigms as two opinions and concludes that 'science is subjective', without engaging the demarcation question, the problem of induction, or a concrete episode such as the transition from Newtonian to relativistic mechanics.
The Popper-Kuhn contrast is taught as a debate, and candidates mistake describing both sides for analysing it. They also lack a historical case they can narrate accurately, so the abstract claims float free.
What to do instead
Frame the essay around a precise question (e.g. 'Does falsification successfully demarcate science from pseudoscience?'). Test it against one case you can describe accurately and briefly, then bring in Kuhn as a challenge to the account of how science actually proceeds. Distinguish descriptive claims (how science works) from normative ones (how it ought to work), and take a position on which matters for the demarcation problem.
In the Prescribed text study, the candidate retells the plot or argument of the set text in order, quoting passages accurately but never analysing them, and answers a question about a theme by summarising what happens rather than by arguing about what the text claims and how it supports that claim.
The text is revised as content to be recalled, and quotation feels like evidence. Candidates have not practised moving from quotation to interpretation, and the exam's demand for close reading of specific passages is unfamiliar.
What to do instead
Practise the quote-analysis-claim move: for each key passage, write one sentence on what it says, one on the technique or step in the argument that produces the meaning, and one on the claim it supports in your answer. Answer the question asked, not the text's overall summary, and keep quotations short and embedded in your own sentences.
In the Internal assessment (philosophical analysis of a non-philosophical stimulus), the candidate chooses a stimulus that is already philosophical (a famous thought experiment, an ethics article) or summarises the stimulus at length before adding a thin philosophical comment, so the analysis is unbalanced and the stimulus is not genuinely non-philosophical.
Candidates want a stimulus that is easy to philosophise about and so gravitate to material already framed philosophically. The word limit also tempts them to spend space describing the source.
What to do instead
Choose a genuinely non-philosophical stimulus (an advertisement, a news photograph, a product description, a social-media post, a short story extract) and describe it in no more than a few sentences. Spend the bulk of the word count identifying the implicit assumptions and concepts it relies on, then analysing them with named philosophical positions and evaluating them. Check with your teacher that the stimulus qualifies before you commit.
Across all essays, the candidate uses technical terms (a priori, analytic, compatibilism, qualia, paradigm shift) as decoration, deploying them without definition or correct application, and cites philosophers by name without saying what their view actually is.
Vocabulary is learned as labels attached to topics rather than as tools with precise meanings, and under time pressure candidates reach for impressive-sounding terms. Markers penalise misuse more heavily than omission.
What to do instead
Keep a one-line definition for every technical term you plan to use, and use a term only where the definition does real work in the sentence. When you name a philosopher, follow the name immediately with the position in your own words (e.g. 'Hume, who holds that taste has a standard grounded in the responses of ideal critics'). If you cannot state the view in one sentence, leave the name out.