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Answering IB Questions

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8 views2 pages

Answering IB Questions

Uploaded by

thundervsdanni
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Course Theory → Case Link → “So What?

”
Or: CT’s, CL’s and SW’s

You don’t need to worry too much about the order here. The main thing is that you include a lot of
these 3 things, over and over again as you answer the question.

Course Theory

Course theories basically means key words from the course. Find a keyword from the course which
relates to the question somehow. Use it in a sentence. If you can use two keywords from the course (or
more) in this sentence, that’s even better.

Case Link

A case link is connecting the theory to what’s actually going on in the case. Most people struggle with
this part. Students do read the case, but then they forget to use it in their answer. They think it’s all
about the key words. But actually these connections are hugely valuable.

So What?

“So what?” pulls your insights together and has you show the reader the value of the points you’ve just
made. So What is where you make sure the reader gets your point and understands its value (both in
answering the question, but also for the business in other respects).

You’ll see if you read the 9-10 mark band at the top of this page, that these 3 things do everything you

An example:

“Should fancy restaurant Woods lower it’s prices? (Assume that I’ve also given you a big case to read
about this restaurant.)

You could write:

CTs: Price is one of the elements of the marketing mix, along with place, promotion and product.
Pricing effects sales volume, but also branding. (See all those beautiful key words?)

CL's: In this case, the restaurant is struggling to increase its efficiency. It wants to lower it’s costs, so it
can lower its prices because Tim (the manager) worries he’s losing customers to their new low-price
competitors.

SWs: However, by lowering its prices Woods could negatively affect its customer’s perception of
it’s quality. It’s customers might value its products less and therefore buy less of it. So by lowering its
prices, Woods could end up with less profit.

That might seem hard, but really you’re just trying to tie together key words, with a link to the case and
then make sure you’ve linked it back to the question. CT + CL + SW

You don’t need to do this in order every time for it to work, just keep ticking those three boxes as you
answer your question.
Just a few more quick things:

Also useful to remember when answering business question is that:

1. It's always helpful to start out with a definition of the key words in the question. This shows
the marker that you're going to know what you're talking about. (i.e. you know what profit is).

2. Most business questions lean toward a pros vs cons type of question. The example above is one
of these. If you can, try to make sure you're talking about as many reasons TO DO the thing as
reasons TO NOT do the thing --all while doing your CTs, CLs and SWs.

3. If the question says "evaluate" make sure to come to a conclusion at the end of your answer.

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