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Starting TOK can feel like being handed familiar words that suddenly refuse to stay simple. You know what evidence is. You know what an expert is. Then Theory of Knowledge asks what makes evidence adequate or why experts deserve trust.
The TOK exhibition prompts are 35 prescribed knowledge questions. You choose one prompt, select three specific objects, and write a commentary of no more than 950 words explaining how those objects illuminate the question. The exhibition contributes 33% of the TOK assessment, while the externally assessed 1,600-word essay contributes 67%.
Below, every prompt is translated into a practical line of inquiry, with an object direction to help you begin. These are starting points, not ready-made choices. The best objects usually come from contexts you understand personally.
TOK exhibition requirements at a glance
Before comparing prompts, remember the essentials:
Select one prescribed prompt and reproduce it exactly.
Choose three specific objects, or images of objects, with real-world contexts.
Explain why each particular object belongs in the exhibition.
Connect every object directly to the same prompt.
Develop distinct insights instead of repeating one argument.
Keep the complete commentary within 950 words.
Specificity matters. Instead of choosing "a newspaper," identify one front page from a particular date. Instead of "a calculator," use a particular calculator and explain how its functions shape what its user can know.
11. Can new knowledge change established values or beliefs?
A revised museum label could expose tension between new historical research, established narratives, and cultural identity.
12. Is bias inevitable in the production of knowledge?
A questionnaire can show how wording and selection introduce assumptions before researchers even collect answers.
13. How can we know that current knowledge is an improvement upon past knowledge?
Two map editions could test whether improvement means greater accuracy, detail, accessibility, or usefulness. Newer does not automatically mean better.
14. Does some knowledge belong only to particular communities of knowers?
A ceremonial object displayed with permission could raise questions about cultural ownership, access, authority, and understanding.
15. What constraints are there on the pursuit of knowledge?
A rejected research proposal could demonstrate how ethical, financial, technological, political, or institutional limits shape investigation.
16. Should some knowledge not be sought on ethical grounds?
A research consent form could help examine when possible benefits fail to justify risks to participants.
17. Why do we seek knowledge?
A family genealogy record might reveal overlapping motives such as curiosity, identity, care, status, or control.
18. Are some things unknowable?
Distinguish what is temporarily unknown from what may be impossible to know. A destroyed diary could represent permanently inaccessible historical perspectives.
19. What counts as a good justification for a claim?
A product certification mark could test whether institutional authority, standardized testing, or direct experience provides sufficient support.
A student presents an ordinary house key as a profound museum exhibit while an attendant looks puzzled
An ordinary object becomes philosophically useful when its specific context supports a precise knowledge question.
Prompts about knowers, culture, and expertise
20. What is the relationship between personal experience and knowledge?
A travel journal could show how experience produces insight while remaining limited by one person's perspective.
21. What is the relationship between knowledge and culture?
A bilingual family recipe might connect practical knowledge with language, identity, preservation, and cultural transmission.
22. What role do experts play in influencing our consumption or acquisition of knowledge?
A doctor's annotated test result could show how expertise enables understanding while requiring non-specialists to extend trust.
23. How important are material tools in the production or acquisition of knowledge?
A school microscope can show how tools extend perception while limiting observations through their design and resolution.
24. How might the context in which knowledge is presented influence whether it is accepted or rejected?
A health claim on product packaging could reveal how setting, authority, audience, and commercial purpose affect acceptance.
25. How can we distinguish between knowledge, belief and opinion?
A handwritten prediction beside an official result could help examine truth, evidence, confidence, and justification.
26. Does our knowledge depend on our interactions with other knowers?
A document containing teacher feedback could demonstrate how criticism, explanation, and collaboration change individual understanding.
27. Does all knowledge impose ethical obligations on those who know it?
A confidentiality agreement could explore whether possessing privileged information creates responsibilities that ordinary knowledge does not.
RevisionDojo's TOK Exhibition Coursework Library shows how effective commentaries stay focused on their prompts. Study structure, but never copy objects or arguments.
Prompts about objectivity, ownership, and production
28. To what extent is objectivity possible in the production or acquisition of knowledge?
A laboratory protocol might show how transparent procedures reduce individual influence, even when perfect neutrality remains difficult.
29. Who owns knowledge?
A patented design could reveal tension between rewarding creators, protecting cultural knowledge, and allowing society to benefit from discoveries.
30. What role does imagination play in producing knowledge about the world?
A scientific model can show how researchers imagine unseen structures before testing whether those models explain observations.
31. How can we judge when evidence is adequate?
A smoke alarm test record could demonstrate why high-stakes conclusions require stronger evidence than everyday decisions.
32. What makes a good explanation?
Two instruction manuals for one device could test whether clarity, accuracy, scope, simplicity, and usefulness outweigh sheer detail.
33. How is current knowledge shaped by its historical development?
An older science textbook could show how present knowledge emerged through inherited concepts, disputes, corrections, and continuities.
34. In what ways do our values affect our acquisition of knowledge?
A personalized news feed can demonstrate how existing interests and values influence what information someone encounters or accepts.
35. In what ways do values affect the production of knowledge?
A research funding announcement could show how institutional and social priorities determine which questions receive resources.
How to choose your prompt and objects
Do not choose the prompt that sounds most sophisticated. Choose the one that gives you three specific, defensible objects with genuinely different contributions.
Use this quick test:
Can I explain the prompt in ordinary language?
Can I identify three existing objects with precise contexts?
Does each object reveal something different?
Can I explain why each particular object is necessary?
Can I address complications without forcing an absolute answer?
A useful planning sentence is: This object shows that... because... If the sentence works equally well for hundreds of unrelated objects, the connection is probably too generic. Strong analysis depends on what makes this object, in this context, uniquely helpful.
The exhibition becomes manageable when you stop hunting for three impressive objects. Its real task is smaller and more interesting: noticing how knowledge already operates in the world around you.
Begin with a prompt you can explain without TOK jargon. Find three objects with identifiable histories and contexts. Then make every paragraph prove why that particular object changes, complicates, or deepens your response.
RevisionDojo lets you bring that planning together with Questionbank practice, Flashcards, Predicted Papers, Mock Exams, the Coursework Library, grading tools, Tutors, and subject Study Notes. As the ultimate IB resource, it helps ensure that TOK remains connected to the wider work of DP1 rather than becoming one isolated deadline.
