Section B gives you two questions worth 6 marks each. Each one hands you a scenario: a character, a case, or a role to step into. Then it asks you to apply a theory or concept to it.
That word "apply" is doing a lot of work, and it is where the marks are won and lost.
The question is not asking you to write everything you know about a theory. It is asking you to use the theory to explain something specific. Most answers that fall short are not wrong. They are a solid explanation of a theory that never quite gets connected back to the scenario in front of them.
What the examiner is looking for
The mark bands for Section B come down to two things held at once.
Your knowledge of the theory, accurate and in enough detail. And your application, connecting that theory to the specific scenario explicitly and in a developed way.
A 5 or 6 out of 6 means both are strong. Not one carrying the other.
This is why a student who knows social learning theory inside out can still land on 3 or 4. The knowledge is there. The application is implied rather than stated, and implied application does not get credited.
The GPS framework
Three moves, in order, repeated.
G — General point. Name the concept correctly. "One key aspect of social learning theory is..."
P — Psychological mechanism. Explain how it works, not just what it is called.
S — Scenario. Apply it explicitly to what is in front of you. "In this scenario..."
Then do it again. And again. Three complete GPS rounds is the shape of a 6-mark answer.
Each letter is protecting you from a specific failure. The G stops you from gesturing at a concept without naming it. The P stops you from labelling a mechanism instead of explaining it. The S stops your application from being implied.
Three complete rounds consistently produce answers in the 5 to 6 range, because they force the two things the mark bands reward into every paragraph rather than leaving application to a final sentence that runs out of time.
Roughly 300 words, three rounds
Section B is 30 minutes for two questions, so about 15 minutes each including reading the scenario.
Aim for around 300 words per 6-mark answer. Stronger responses tend to sit in the 200 to 300 range, so 300 is the upper end of what is realistic rather than a floor to reach.
Three GPS rounds. That is the whole plan.
Quality matters more than quantity here. Three precise rounds will outperform five rushed ones, and they will outperform a long answer that explains the theory beautifully and mentions the scenario twice.
If the question is split into parts
Some Section B questions come as sub-questions worth 2 marks each rather than a single 6-marker.
The adjustment is simple. One GPS round per part. The structure does not change, only how many times you run it.
About PEEL, SEAL, and whatever your school taught you
Your school may teach a different structure. That is completely fine.
There is no single correct structure in IB Psychology. The examiner does not care what method you use. What they care about is whether your knowledge is accurate, your terminology is correct, and your application is explicit and developed.
GPS is the structure I recommend because I have read the mark bands carefully as an examiner and it is the one that most reliably forces both of those things onto the page. If PEEL already does that for you, keep using it. If your answers keep coming back marked strong on theory and weak on application, GPS is worth trying, because the S is doing that job every single round.
How to practise Section B
Reading model answers is not practice. It feels productive and it trains very little.
The sequence that works is this.
Read a scenario. Write your full answer before you look at any mark scheme or model. Then check what you wrote against the criteria, honestly.
When you check, look for three specific things. Which terminology did you miss. Which scenario links were weak or absent. Which mechanisms did you name but not actually explain.
That list is your revision list. Not the topics you feel shaky on, but the ones your writing shows you are shaky on. Those are usually different, and the second one is more useful.
Do this across all four contexts, because Section B questions can come from any of them: learning and cognition, human relationships, health and well-being, and human development. A structure you can only run in one context is not yet a structure.
If you want scenarios across all four contexts with model answers and mark schemes to check yourself against, that is what the PsychExcel Paper 1 Section B resource is built for.