What the investigation does
The Category 3 essay asks how language in old-school and new-school rap has evolved. It selects songs from different periods and considers their forms of address, slang, imagery, allusion and presentation of the speaker's relationship with an audience.
The comparison moves from communal address and social commentary in earlier selections to material self-presentation and gendered language in later examples. Its close readings produce a clear comparative argument, although the small, selective corpus places limits on conclusions about rap as a whole.
Why this example is worth reading
The body repeatedly returns to language choices and their effects rather than becoming a general history of music.
Comparison of audience address and speaker identity provides a recurring analytical thread across the selected lyrics.
Attention to slang, imperatives and allusions gives individual observations a concrete textual basis.
What the examiner highlights
The examiner judges the introduction's ideas relevant and its explanation of the research question and task well summarized.
A concluding handwritten note praises the sustained focus on language and the argument throughout; a margin note also identifies an interesting comparative point.
The examiner notes that the abstract appears short but contains the required elements, asks about its word count, and flags an imprecise word in the contextual discussion.
What to examine critically
The selected songs cannot establish a uniform historical change across the entire genre; corpus selection and counterexamples need stronger justification.
Evaluative or moral descriptions should be tied to precise linguistic evidence, with distinctions preserved between a lyrical persona, an artist and a wider cultural trend.
Apply it to your own work
Justify the texts and periods selected before claiming a historical change.
Explain the effect of a language feature instead of merely identifying or paraphrasing it.
State conclusions at the scale of the corpus actually analyzed.
Essay & assessment material
Read the original material alongside the breakdown, or download it to keep.
The examiner mark sheet appears on PDF page 3. Legible handwritten examiner comments appear on pages 5, 7, 8, 13 and 17. This image-based PDF was read visually, including these comments; the commentary is embedded in the same file.
Source & assessment context
IB English A exemplars, May 2015. The source PDFs retain their original attribution. The analysis on this page is AsterDraft’s independent teaching commentary.
Examiner mark: 31/36 (legacy criteria). The examiner mark sheet appears on PDF page 3. Legible handwritten examiner comments appear on pages 5, 7, 8, 13 and 17. This image-based PDF was read visually, including these comments; the commentary is embedded in the same file.