The commentary must:

explain the links between the article, a key concept and economic theory taken from the unit of the syllabus on which the article is based
demonstrate economic insights into the implications of the article (that is, it should provide evidence of the student’s ability to discuss current events from the point of view of an economist).

On each commentary students must record:

the title of the article
the source of the article (including date of access to the site if from the internet)
the date the article was published
the date the commentary was written
the word count of the commentary
the unit of the syllabus to which the article relates
the key concept being used

If students do not adhere to the following requirements, they can lose marks under criterion F: Rubric requirements.

1. Articles

Each article must be based on a different unit of the syllabus (excluding Unit 1: Introduction to economics).

2. Sources

Students must use a different source for each commentary.

3. Contemporary articles

Students need to look for articles relating to current events, and these must be published no earlier than one year before the writing of the commentary.

Internal Assessment Article

‘print’ your article as a pdf and ‘attach’ it to the beginning of your written commentary. Be sure that the source and date of the article is clearly identified in the original article that is attached to your written commentary

China girlfriend rental app gets leg up from Lunar New Year demand

By Muyu Xu and Ryan Woo

ReutersJanuary 26, 2017

logo of a date hiring app "Hire Me Plz" is seen in the illustrat

26, 2017. REUTERS/Damir Sagolj/Illustration

By Muyu Xu and Ryan Woo

BEIJING (Reuters) - As millions in China head home to celebrate the Lunar New Year holiday with their families, 24-year-old Luoluo is busy answering messages on a mobile app from desperate men looking to hire an instant girlfriend whom they can present to mom and dad.

On visits home during the holiday, which kicks off on Friday, single people are often subjected to tough lectures from relatives keen on reinforcing the importance of marriage and securing the family blood line.

Some singles resort to hiring fake girlfriends and boyfriends to appease their parents. But an explosion in smartphone use in recent years means one can now pay for such a date through a handful of mobile apps, with just a few clicks.

"Over 1,000 users on our platform have signed up as dates for hire for the New Year break," Cao Tiantian, founder of date-for-hire app Hire Me Plz, told Reuters.

Subscribers to the app pay from as little as 1 yuan ($0.15) to 1,999 yuan an hour for a dinner date, a chat, a game of mah-jong or even a foot massage.

Prices surge around the time of Lunar New Year, with thousands of attractive twenty-somethings like Luoluo commanding fees of 3,000 yuan to 10,000 yuan a day.

"I'm still seeking people to fill my time slots," said the woman from the southwestern province of Sichuan, who has just two half-day slots left to fill over the next seven days.

"But only those who stay in the same province as me. I don't have time to waste on travel," she added.

Apart from Hire Me Plz, there are five major date-hiring apps in China, which make their money by taking a cut from hires, and also from subscription fees.

"Our business model is still new, though an increasing number of young people have accepted the idea of selling their time as commodity," said Beijing-based Cao, who expects date-rental to become a multi-billion dollar market in five years.

Since its launch in 2015, Hire Me Plz has garnered a user base of 700,000 and 1.7 million followers on Tencent's <0700.HK> WeChat, China's biggest mobile social media network.

Date rentals - offline or online - have drawn criticism in recent years, with some netizens on social media and legal experts questioning the morality and legality of the business.

"There are no clear prohibitions in Chinese laws regarding date rentals. But risks exist among such deals, which may also violate the law to some extent," state-run China News Services this month cited Li Hongzhao, an official of the Beijing Lawyers Association Criminal Law Committee, as saying.

Li said it is sometimes hard to define the boundaries of appropriate intimacy and when an act of intimacy becomes sexual assault.

Sex is not part of the services offered on any of the mobile apps. Prostitution is illegal in China.

Dating services are also offered by individuals on Baidu's Tieba classifieds and Tencent's QQ messaging service. But buyers beware - those services provide no identity authentication, unlike the mobile apps.

Hire Me Plz's Cao said the initial aim of her app was to help overcome the problem of loneliness experienced by young people leaving home to work alone in big cities.

"I was seeking a more effective way to ask someone out. Who wants to chat for months via social networks and end up with nothing?"

Elsewhere in Asia, online date-for-hire services are mostly found on website-only platforms, such as Soulmate in South Korea and Pally Asia in Singapore.

Pally Asia, which calls itself a "rent-a-friend" platform, plans to push out an app in the first half of this year.

($1=6.8758 Chinese yuan)

(Additional reporting by Fathin Ungku in SINGAPORE and Nataly Pak in SEOUL; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)

The Written Commentary

Date IA was completed

Word count

Unit of the Syllabus to which the article relates

Key concept being used

Title of article

Source of article

Date of article

Paragraph 1

There is no need to summarize your article, it is a written commentary. Introduce, define, explain, relate, develop the economic theory and the key concept directly to the article.

Blah blah blah, economics, blah, economics, blah. Blah blah blah, economics, blah, economics, blah. Blah blah blah, economics, blah, economics, blah. Blah blah blah, economics, blah, economics, blah. Blah blah blah, economics, blah, economics, blah. Blah blah blah, economics, blah, economics, blah. Blah blah blah, economics, blah, economics, blah. Blah blah blah, economics, blah, economics, blah. Blah blah blah, economics, blah, economics, blah. Blah blah blah, economics, blah, economics, blah. Blah blah blah, economics, blah, economics, blah. Blah blah blah, economics, blah, economics, blah.

/Users/ddachpian/Google Drive/IB Economics/crazy econ graph.jpg

Graph #1

Paragraph 2

Provide a graph that illustrates and explains the problem/issue from the article.

Paragraph 3

Paragraphs 3 & 4 should be the beginning of your evaluation by analyzing the different possible solutions to the problem/issue found in the article. A separate paragraph should be used to divide the evaluation method of compare & contrasting, pro’s & con’s, effects on different

Paragraph 4

/Users/ddachpian/Google Drive/IB Economics/crazy econ graph.jpg

Graph #2

Paragraph 5

Solution; try to relate the solution to the key concept

Paragraph 6

Identify, define, and explain your solution/judgement to the problem with reason why it is the best solution.