IB Chinese B and Mandarin ab initio: how the exams work and how to get a 7

What is IB Chinese B, and who takes ab initio?

The International Baccalaureate® offers Mandarin in Group 2, its language-acquisition group, at two levels of experience. Which one you take depends on how much Chinese you already have, and your school decides. We read the IB's own course briefs to pin down the differences.

The names trip people up. Students search "IB Mandarin B", but the IB lists the course as Chinese B, and your results will say "Chinese B - Mandarin". The beginners' course is Mandarin ab initio, Latin for "from the beginning". We use the IB's names on this page.

• Chinese B is for students with "some previous experience" of the language, the IB's course brief says. You can take it at SL or HL.
• Mandarin ab initio is for students with no experience of Chinese, or very little. It runs at SL only.
• Chinese A sits in Group 1, the IB's language and literature courses. Students whose strongest language is Chinese often take it instead.

The ab initio rule is strict, and one school's course outline quotes the guide on it. A student who can already "understand and respond to spoken and written language on a range of common topics" isn't to be placed there. So if you speak Chinese at home, expect Chinese B or Chinese A.

We counted the takers in the IB's statistical bulletin: Chinese B is the IB's fifth-largest Language B course, after Spanish, English, French and German. Here's who sat the May 2025 papers:

Source: IB, Final Statistical Bulletin, May 2025 assessment session. Another 1,789 students sat these courses in November 2025.

If you grew up with Chinese, our guide for heritage speakers covers the gaps that usually show, from reading characters to the narrow Chinese of home.

SL or HL: two books, a longer essay and more 6s

HL is the same exam, set harder, plus literature. The IB recommends 240 teaching hours for HL against 150 for SL, and HL students study two literary works first written in Chinese.

That literature shapes the HL oral. At SL you talk about a picture; at HL you talk about an extract from one of your two works. HL's Paper 1 also asks for a longer piece and, in the brief's words, tasks that "demand higher-order thinking skills".

The grades tell an interesting story. We added up the two top grades for each course. Here's how they split in May 2025:

Source: IB, Final Statistical Bulletin, May 2025; "6 or 7" is our sum of the two grades.

HL students are more likely to reach a 6, but no more likely to reach the top grade. Part of that is who chooses HL: students who already speak Chinese well. I'd pick HL for the literature and the challenge, and I wouldn't pick it as a safer route to a top grade.

Four parts, each a quarter of your grade

Chinese B and ab initio share one model. IB examiners mark the written papers, and your teacher marks the oral, which the IB then checks on a sample of recordings.

Here's every part, at each course, from the IB's subject briefs and the course documents schools publish:

Sources: IB subject briefs for Language B and ab initio for parts, marks and hours; the IB's 2021 adapted-assessment tables for Paper 2's total times and ab initio Paper 1. Chinese B Paper 1 times, the listening and reading split, character counts and oral timings are as reported by schools quoting the IB guide: Tamagawa Academy, School of the Nations, Glenunga International High School and Pamoja. The IB sets lengths in English words; schools convert them for Chinese.

Each part is then scaled to a quarter of your grade, whatever its raw marks. We'll come back to what that means for listening.

We set each part's time against its weight. Here's how many exam minutes sit behind each tenth of your grade:

Source: our arithmetic from the timings above. Speaking time only: preparation adds 15 minutes at SL and 20 at HL. At ab initio the figures are 4, 21 and 24.

That's why I'd give the oral rehearsal time all year. Your grade on it is decided in a quarter of an hour, and you can practise its exact shape at home.

About a third of Chinese B students get a 7

The IB's public grade data comes in its statistical bulletins, which give every course's spread of grades. We read the last five May sessions.

Here's the share of 7s in each, for all three courses:

Source: IB final statistical bulletins, May 2021 to May 2025. In 2021 the IB shortened Paper 2 and changed the weights, its adapted-assessment table shows.

So when an older student says half the class got a 7, they may be right for their year. Since 2023, the realistic odds are about one in three at Chinese B and one in four at ab initio.

November sessions look very different, with around six in ten Chinese B students getting the top grade. Those cohorts are smaller, and we can't tell from the bulletins who takes them, so I'd plan by the May figures.

What a 7 takes, part by part

The IB sets grade boundaries after every session, for every part. It sends them to schools and doesn't post them publicly: the boundaries document for coordinators says they're all "available on IBIS", the IB's system for schools.

One school posted part of the IB's May 2024 boundaries for coordinators, covering 21 Language B and ab initio courses. We parsed every entry in it. Chinese isn't among them, but the pattern is clear.

Here's the lowest mark for a 7 on each part of Language B SL, across the eight languages in that copy:

Source: IB, "May 2024 Grade boundaries for Diploma programme coordinators", languages, as posted by a school; our parse of every course in it. No Chinese or Mandarin course is in this copy.

The oral's line for a 7 didn't move between languages, or between SL, HL and ab initio. That makes sense: the oral is marked on the same criteria in every language. The papers are different texts in every language, so their lines shift.

Here's what that means as a likely target for Chinese. These are the middle values across the other languages, by course:

Source: our medians of the same May 2024 document: 11 ab initio entries in eight languages, 14 Language B SL entries in eight, 7 HL entries in five. Japanese B, the closest language in the copy, needed 85 or 86 overall.

Treat these as likely bars: none of them is a Chinese figure. Study sites post Chinese B tables they say come from the IB, with the overall line for the top grade between about 78 and 85. We couldn't check those against an IB original.

The useful move is simple. I'd ask your coordinator for last year's Chinese B boundaries: schools have them, and they're the only exact numbers there are.

How does the IB Chinese B individual oral work?

The oral is a recorded conversation with your teacher, held in your final year. You prepare under supervision, speak about a stimulus, then talk more widely.

Here's the sequence at SL, in the guide's terms as schools quote them:

1. You choose a stimulus. Your teacher shows you two pictures, each linked to a different theme, and you pick one. At HL, you get two extracts, one from each of your literary works.
2. You prepare. You get 15 minutes at SL and ab initio, and 20 at HL. You may write up to ten bullet points, for reference only, not to read out.
3. Part 1: your presentation. You talk about the stimulus for three to four minutes, linking it to the theme and to Chinese-speaking cultures.
4. Part 2: follow-up discussion. Your teacher asks about your presentation for four to five minutes, staying on the same theme.
5. Part 3: general discussion. The conversation moves to at least one other theme for five to six minutes.

Ab initio follows the same steps, shorter. Pamoja's Mandarin ab initio procedure gives about a minute or two for the presentation, then three to four minutes for each conversation part. Pamoja teaches IB Diploma courses online, and its teachers run these orals.

The timing matters more than it looks. A presentation that stops at two minutes leaves your teacher filling time, and a general discussion of short answers gives the marker little to reward. In my view, the general discussion is the part most worth rehearsing.

Here's how I'd use the preparation time. Spend the first couple of minutes choosing: take the picture you can say most about, even if you like the other one better. Spend most of the rest on your ten bullet points. Cover what you see, what it suggests, a link to a Chinese-speaking place, a comparison with home and one example from your life.

Keep the last few minutes for your first and last sentences, said silently in your head. A strong opening settles your nerves, and a clear close tells your teacher you're ready for questions.

We built the timer below to run the whole oral with each course's timings. Choose your course, press Start, and speak out loud:

Each run draws two practice pictures, described in words, plus follow-up and discussion questions. They're ours, not the IB's. One caveat: the timer can't hear you, so record each run on your phone and listen back.

The oral's marks: language first, then the conversation

Four criteria mark the oral. Language is worth 12 of the 30 marks, and the rest are split evenly across your presentation, your conversation and how well you interact.

Here's what each rewards, and what to do about it:

Criteria names and marks: the Language B and ab initio guides, as quoted by schools and tutors; at HL, B1 is the literary extract. The descriptors are paraphrased.

Notice where the marks sit. Two of the four criteria are earned after your presentation ends, so a polished speech followed by one-line answers caps your grade. That's why our timer gives the conversation parts most of its time.

For criterion A, these patterns show range without much risk:

• although … but …, 虽然……但是…… suīrán … dànshì …
• not only … but also …, 不但……而且…… búdàn … érqiě …
• if … then …, 如果……就…… rúguǒ … jiù …
• more and more, 越来越(yuèláiyuè)

Grammar slips cost less than silence. Keep talking, correct yourself once if you notice, and move on.

A model SL presentation and two answers

Here's how a presentation can sound. We wrote it for a picture of a crowded railway station before the Spring Festival, with families and suitcases. These are the bones of a three-minute talk, in a student's voice:

• I've chosen the first picture; it's about festivals and travel. 我选的是第一张图片，它跟节日和旅行有关。 Wǒ xuǎn de shì dì-yī zhāng túpiàn, tā gēn jiérì hé lǚxíng yǒuguān.
• The picture shows a big railway station full of people. 图片上是一个很大的火车站，里面有很多人。 Túpiàn shang shì yí ge hěn dà de huǒchēzhàn, lǐmiàn yǒu hěn duō rén.
• They're carrying a lot of luggage; they look tired but happy. 他们带着很多行李，看起来很累，但是也很高兴。 Tāmen dàizhe hěn duō xíngli, kàn qǐlai hěn lèi, dànshì yě hěn gāoxìng.
• I think this is the Spring Festival travel rush. 我觉得这是春节前的春运。 Wǒ juéde zhè shì Chūnjié qián de chūnyùn.
• In China, many people work in big cities, and at Spring Festival they go home to their families. 在中国，很多人在大城市工作，春节一定要回老家和家人团聚。 Zài Zhōngguó, hěn duō rén zài dà chéngshì gōngzuò, Chūnjié yídìng yào huí lǎojiā hé jiārén tuánjù.
• This shows how important family is in Chinese culture. 这说明家庭在中国文化里非常重要。 Zhè shuōmíng jiātíng zài Zhōngguó wénhuà lǐ fēicháng zhòngyào.
• All in all, going home for New Year is a tradition as well as a trip. 总的来说，回家过年不只是旅行，也是一种传统。 Zǒng de lái shuō, huíjiā guònián bù zhǐ shì lǚxíng, yě shì yì zhǒng chuántǒng.

That's description, interpretation, a cultural link and a close. Add a comparison with your own country and an example from your own life, and you have three to four minutes.

In part 2, your teacher might ask: why do so many people insist on going home? 你觉得为什么这么多人一定要回家过年？ Nǐ juéde wèishénme zhème duō rén yídìng yào huíjiā guònián? A full answer gives two reasons:

• I think there are two main reasons. 我觉得主要有两个原因。 Wǒ juéde zhǔyào yǒu liǎng ge yuányīn.
• First, many people only go home once a year. 第一，很多人一年只回一次家。 Dì-yī, hěn duō rén yì nián zhǐ huí yí cì jiā.
• Second, it's the festival for families, and parents would be sad otherwise. 第二，春节是家人团聚的节日，不回家父母会很难过。 Dì-èr, Chūnjié shì jiārén tuánjù de jiérì, bù huíjiā fùmǔ huì hěn nánguò.

Part 3 moves to another theme. Asked how young people can protect the environment, 你觉得年轻人应该怎么保护环境？ Nǐ juéde niánqīngrén yīnggāi zěnme bǎohù huánjìng?, you might say:

• We can start small, using fewer plastic bags and taking the bus more. 我觉得可以从小事做起，比如少用塑料袋，多坐公共汽车。 Wǒ juéde kěyǐ cóng xiǎoshì zuò qǐ, bǐrú shǎo yòng sùliàodài, duō zuò gōnggòng qìchē.
• One person can't do much, but together it's different. 虽然一个人的力量很小，但是大家一起做就不一样了。 Suīrán yí ge rén de lìliang hěn xiǎo, dànshì dàjiā yìqǐ zuò jiù bù yíyàng le.

The second sentence earns its place twice: it answers the question, and it uses 虽然……但是…… suīrán … dànshì … for criterion A.

HL: analyse the extract instead of retelling it

At HL, the stimulus is an extract from one of the two works your class studied. Your teacher chooses one extract from each work, and you pick one; schools that quote the guide put each at up to about 300 words.

The trap is retelling the story. Criterion B1 rewards what you make of the extract: what happens in it, how the writer shows it, and why it matters in the work. I'd spend the preparation on three points about the passage and skip the summary.

These openers keep you analysing:

• This passage comes from …, 这段选自…… zhè duàn xuǎnzì …
• The writer uses … to show …, 作者用……来表现…… zuòzhě yòng … lái biǎoxiàn …
• This detail shows …, 这个细节说明…… zhège xìjié shuōmíng …
• I think the theme of this passage is …, 我认为这一段的主题是…… wǒ rènwéi zhè yí duàn de zhǔtí shì …

Part 3 at HL is the same as at SL: a conversation on other themes. So HL students need the SL skill too, answering on everyday topics at length.

Ab initio: a short talk, then two conversations

The ab initio oral has the same three parts in about seven to ten minutes. Your presentation runs only a minute or two, so most of your marks come from answering.

Here's a model one-minute description we wrote for a photo of a family dinner:

• This is a photo of dinner. 这是一张晚饭的照片。 Zhè shì yì zhāng wǎnfàn de zhàopiàn.
• There are four people in the photo, eating at home. 照片里有四个人，他们在家吃饭。 Zhàopiàn lǐ yǒu sì ge rén, tāmen zài jiā chīfàn.
• On the table there's rice, fish and greens. 桌子上有米饭、鱼和青菜。 Zhuōzi shang yǒu mǐfàn, yú hé qīngcài.
• I think they're happy, because everyone is smiling. 我觉得他们很开心，因为大家都在笑。 Wǒ juéde tāmen hěn kāixīn, yīnwèi dàjiā dōu zài xiào.
• At home, we eat together every evening at seven. 在我家，我们每天晚上七点一起吃饭。 Zài wǒ jiā, wǒmen měitiān wǎnshang qī diǎn yìqǐ chīfàn.

Five sentences, and each does a job: what it is, who, what, an opinion with a reason, and a link to your life. Pamoja's guidance also says the questions push you through different tenses, so practise past and future answers too.

The prescribed topics help here. Ab initio has 20 of them, so I'd prepare a few sentences on each, with one opinion and one reason.

Paper 1: choose the task, then fit the text type

At Chinese B, Paper 1 gives you three tasks, each on a different theme, and you answer one. Ab initio students answer two, each chosen from three. Each task sets a situation and a reader, and offers a choice of text types.

Tutors who quote the IB guide report three criteria for the writing paper at Chinese B. Language and message carry 12 marks each, and conceptual understanding the last 6: whether your text fits its reader, purpose and type.

That last criterion rewards fit over flair. Fluent Chinese in the wrong register, or a blog that reads like an essay, gives away marks that plainer Chinese in the right form would earn.

These are the conventions Chinese teachers expect for the text types that come up most:

These are standard Chinese writing conventions; the IB doesn't publish a list of them. Your exam names the text types each task allows.

Here's how a blog post can open, in a student's voice. We wrote it for a task about a school that wants to ban phones in class:

• Title: Phones in class, good or bad? 手机进课堂，好还是不好？ Shǒujī jìn kètáng, hǎo háishi bù hǎo?
• Hi everyone! I'm a high-school student. 大家好！我是一名高中生。 Dàjiā hǎo! Wǒ shì yì míng gāozhōngshēng.
• The school wants to ban phones in class, and I'd like to share my view. 最近学校想禁止学生在课堂上用手机，我想说说我的看法。 Zuìjìn xuéxiào xiǎng jìnzhǐ xuésheng zài kètáng shang yòng shǒujī, wǒ xiǎng shuōshuo wǒ de kànfǎ.
• I don't think a total ban is fair, because phones can help us learn too. 我觉得完全禁止不太合理，因为手机也可以帮助我们学习。 Wǒ juéde wánquán jìnzhǐ bú tài hélǐ, yīnwèi shǒujī yě kěyǐ bāngzhù wǒmen xuéxí.

The greeting, the first person and the question in the title all tell the examiner this is a blog. End it the way blogs end, by asking readers for comments.

Count your characters in practice until you can judge the length by eye. Then spend the exam on content, and leave five minutes to check characters and endings.

Paper 2: three recordings and three texts

Paper 2 tests understanding, in two separate sections. Listening has three recordings and reading three written texts, drawn from all five themes, and together they're half your grade.

They aren't equal inside. Listening is marked out of 25 and reading out of 40, but each counts for a quarter of your grade, so a listening mark is worth more.

For listening, I'd read the questions before each recording and note what each one wants: a number, a place, a reason, an opinion. Most lost marks are details you heard but didn't catch in time.

Answers often hide after a change of mind. These words warn you one is coming:

• but, 但是(dànshì)
• however, 不过(búguò)
• actually, 其实(qíshí)
• changed to, 改成(gǎichéng)

For reading, time is the enemy. You have an hour for three texts at both levels, about 20 minutes each with the questions, so practise with a timer.

Build both skills with Chinese at your level every day, alongside past papers. Graded dialogues, stories and the news all train the same speed.

The themes set the topics, and there's no word list

Both courses share five prescribed themes: identities, experiences, human ingenuity, social organization and sharing the planet. The difference is what sits under them.

Chinese B suggests topics under each theme, but they're optional, so your school chooses what to teach, from lifestyles to migration and globalization. Ab initio prescribes 20 topics, four per theme, from daily routine to the environment, and all of them must be covered.

Here are the 20 ab initio topics, from the IB's ab initio brief:

Source: IB, Language ab initio subject brief, first assessment 2020.

The IB publishes no word list for either course. For ab initio, a Mandarin language-specific syllabus sits on the IB's resource centre for teachers, so ask your teacher what it covers.

Without an official list, the HSK lists are a practical stand-in. Our IB books aim at about HSK 2 to 3 for ab initio and HSK 3 to 5 for Chinese B, though there's no official link between the two exams. Our HSK word lists have every word with pinyin, English and audio.

I'd build a word bank for each theme as you go. Ten useful words a topic, used in your own sentences, beat a long list you only recognise.

A 12-week plan, and a 6-month plan

Your school sets the oral date in your final year, and the papers come in May or November. Plan backwards from both.

Here's how I'd spend 12 weeks, at about 30 minutes a day on top of class:

Our plan; the IB doesn't set one. Adjust the weeks to your school's oral date.

With six months, spend the first two building word banks for all five themes, and the middle two on the oral and text types. Keep the last two for timed papers and mock orals.

Where you start changes the focus. If you grew up with Chinese, work on characters, formal register and text types, because your writing may lag behind your speaking.

If you learned Chinese at school, work on listening speed and on long spoken answers. The general discussion rewards students who can keep going, and we built the timer's last part to train exactly that.

Free practice, starting with ours

The IB's public materials are thin. Its subject briefs are free, and the full guides, past papers and examiners' subject reports reach students through their schools, or the IB store for the guides.

We checked each of these on 5 November. Here's what's available, and what each is best for:

Checked 5 November 2026: Hodder's listing and Mandarin Corner.

SayMei wrote every question in our books, so they're practice in the exam's format, not IB papers. Every audio track plays free on each book's listening page, such as the oral pack's listening page, without an account.

The subject reports are worth chasing. Principal examiners write them after each session, describing what strong answers did and where candidates lost marks. Your teacher can read them on the IB's resource centre.

Exam day, results and retakes

The IB runs two sessions a year, in May and November. You sit the written papers at your school, which enters you for each subject.

• Dates. For the May 2027 session, one US school's published calendar puts Chinese B SL's writing and reading papers on Tuesday 4 May, with listening the next morning. Check your own school's timetable, which follows the IB's.
• Results. May results come out in early July; in 2026 it was 6 July. Your coordinator gives you a personal code and PIN for the IB's candidate website.
• Remarks. After results, your school can request an enquiry upon results on your behalf.
• Retakes. A later May or November session is possible, entered through your school.
• Fees. The IB bills schools per subject and doesn't publish the amounts; schools see them behind their login.
• No class at school? The IB offers Mandarin ab initio online through its DP online courses, with your school as the exam centre.

The IB has also begun moving some subjects to on-screen exams, starting with a small number in 2026, and schools can keep paper until they're ready. Ask your coordinator how your papers will run.

Nothing changes for you before 2029

The IB has rewritten both courses. The new versions launch in early 2027, are taught from that August, and are first examined in May 2029.

For students, the exams stay the same. The IB's ab initio update says there are "no changes to the assessment model or the assessed components", with small rewording in two oral criteria. The 2029 Language B brief keeps the same four parts and weights.

So if you sit your exams before 2029, everything on this page applies. If you start the course in 2027, it still applies, with a refreshed guide behind it. We'll update this page when the new guide is out.

Where SayMei fits, and where it doesn't

We make SayMei, an app for learning Mandarin by speaking with Mei Lin, an AI teacher. For the IB, it helps most with parts 2 and 3 of the oral: answering questions at length, with someone who replies and corrects you.

Our three IB books give you practice in the exam's format, and our word lists, Stories and Dialogues give you daily reading and listening. SayMei Premium is $5.99 a month for 200 minutes with Mei Lin. Depending on your country, you start with a free first lesson or a free week that needs a card.

Here's where it doesn't fit. SayMei isn't affiliated with or endorsed by the International Baccalaureate, and it has no IB papers. It can't mark your work against the IB's criteria or predict your grade.

It doesn't teach your HL literary works either, and it teaches simplified characters by default. For marked essays and orals, your teacher, who will mark your real oral, is the better judge.

What to do next

• Check your course and level. Ask your teacher whether you're in ab initio, SL or HL, and when your oral is scheduled.
• Ask for last year's boundaries. Your coordinator has the exact Chinese B lines.
• Run the oral timer this week. Do all three parts out loud, and record one run.
• Build one theme's word bank at a time. Use each word in a sentence of your own.
• Write one Paper 1 task a week. Rotate the text types, and check each opening and closing.

Start with the free IB Chinese B oral practice pack.