IB World Religions Notes

Aimnova offers free IB World Religions SL revision notes. Every micro-topic includes clear explanations, diagrams, spaced-repetition flashcards and exam-style questions marked against the published markbands — no sign-up required to read the notes.

World religions is a standard level subject in three parts. Part 1 introduces nine traditions — Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Taoism, Jainism and the Baha’i Faith — through three fundamental questions about the human condition, its destination and the path between them, and is examined by paper 1. Part 2 studies two of six traditions in depth through five shared themes — rituals, sacred texts, doctrines, religious experience and ethics — and is examined by two essays on paper 2. Part 3 is the investigative study, which is 25% of the grade.

These notes describe each tradition as its adherents understand it, and every claim is attributed to the people who hold it. Where a tradition disagrees with itself — about who may be ordained, about which obligations bind, about what a rite is doing — the disagreement is reported with the reasoning each side gives and ranked by nobody, because that is what the markbands actually reward. The mark structure throughout is the current one: paper 1 part (b) at 6 marks with Explain as its only command term, and paper 2 essays at 15 marks, both changed from the pre-2017 figures a past paper will still show you.