Engagement Project practice questions.

Which activity counts as genuine active engagement for the engagement project?

• Reading a series of newspaper articles about a political issue
• Watching a documentary about an election
• Interviewing a local councillor about housing policy
• Summarizing a chapter of the course textbook

Answer: Interviewing a local councillor about housing policy

Active engagement means experiential interaction with the political issue and its stakeholders, such as interviews or participation — not desk research alone.

What is the central purpose of the engagement project in the global politics course?

• To explore a political issue through personal engagement and research
• To reproduce the exact findings of a published academic journal article
• To test memorization of the key concepts of the course
• To prepare a timed essay under exam conditions

Answer: To explore a political issue through personal engagement and research

The engagement project is experiential learning: students explore a political issue they care about through engagement and connect it to course concepts.

Which of the following would be the MOST suitable political issue for an engagement project?

• The chemical composition of vehicle exhaust gases
• The exact date on which the national parliament was originally founded
• The average rainfall in the student's home town
• Whether the city should ban cars from the historic centre

Answer: Whether the city should ban cars from the historic centre

A political issue must be contestable — a question about how power and decision-making operate on which people legitimately disagree. Only the car ban involves such a debate.

Before interviewing members of a community organization for the engagement project, a student should FIRST:

• Publish the interviewees' full names online
• Obtain informed consent and explain the project's aim
• Record the conversation secretly to keep answers natural
• Offer payment in exchange for favourable answers

Answer: Obtain informed consent and explain the project's aim

Ethical practice requires informed consent: participants must know the purpose of the research and agree to take part; secret recording and paying for answers are unethical.

Which sentence from an engagement project report shows analysis rather than narration?

• The councillor's reluctance shows how electoral incentives can weaken local legitimacy
• First I emailed the councillor's office, and about two weeks later I finally received a reply
• The meeting took place in the town hall on a Tuesday evening
• I felt nervous before the interview but relaxed afterwards

Answer: The councillor's reluctance shows how electoral incentives can weaken local legitimacy

Analysis interprets the experience through course concepts (here, legitimacy and incentives); the other sentences merely narrate events or feelings.

Who completes the engagement project in IB Global Politics?

• Only HL students
• Only SL students
• Both SL and HL students
• Only students who do not write an extended essay in the subject

Answer: Both SL and HL students

The engagement project is the internal assessment for both SL and HL, although its weighting in the final grade differs between the levels.