1. The individual oral commentary

2. IOC Basics
Each candidate is given a passage of 40 lines or less, which is accompanied by two guiding questions.
Candidates must have no prior knowledge of the passage that they will receive for the IOC.

3. IOC Basics
The candidate randomly selects a passage from a pool or database of passages, often presented in an envelope.
The size of the pool or database of passages is determined by the number of students in the class. Among all of the extracts there must be an equal representation of works read for Part 4.

4. Ratio of passages to students
Passages (per work)
1-5
1 per student (2-3 per work at SL) (1-2 per work at HL)
6–10
6 in total (3 per work at SL) (2 per work at HL)
11–15
7 in total (3-4 per work at SL) (2-3 per work at HL)
16–20
8 in total (4 per work at SL) (2-3 per work at HL)
21–25
9 in total (4-5 per work at SL) (3 per work at HL)
26–30
10 in total (5 per work at SL) (3-4 per work at HL)

5. IOC Basics
Once students have been given a passage, they have 20 minutes to prepare for this in a quiet room under supervision.
In this time, they may annotate or edit the passage, but they must have no other materials.

6. IOC Basics The individual oral commentary is recorded.
In an examination room, students comment for at least 10 minutes on the passage.
After the 10th minute, students should engage in a 5-minute discussion. Any comments made after the 15th minute are not included in the assessment.

7. IOC Basics
A sample of all the IOC recordings is randomly requested by the IB for moderation.
IB moderators moderate the entire Internal Assessment mark (including the further oral activity) based on the IOC.

8. IOC Basics
Based on the samples, moderators determine a moderation factor which is applied to all students in a class. 
The IOC is internally assessed for 15% of the final grade.