Find the Knowledge Issue in the Prompt
- Your TOK Exhibition begins with choosing one of the IA prompts.
- These prompts look short and simple but they're designed to be open-ended, encouraging you to explore multiple interpretations and perspectives.
- If you treat the prompt literally, you'll end up with a descriptive project that bores examiners.
- To create a focused and compelling exhibition , you need to break down the prompt and identify the underlying knowledge issue.
Don’t Take The Prompt At Face Value
- Take the common prompt “What counts as evidence?”
- At first it sounds easy, just talk about evidence in science or history.
- But the word “counts” already implies judgment: who has the authority to decide?
- Plus, “evidence” isn’t fixed, it looks different in a lab, a courtroom, or a cultural tradition.
Knowledge issue hiding underneath: How do communities decide which evidence is valid, and how do those decisions reflect power, culture, or context?
Recognize Multiple Possible Paths
- Every prompt can be spun in many directions.
- With evidence, you could look at:
- Science: data from controlled experiments.
- History: sources that are partial, biased, or missing.
- Culture: oral tradition or spiritual signs treated as evidence in some communities but dismissed in others.
- Technology: how digital traces or algorithms create new forms of evidence.
- The best students show awareness of these possibilities, even if they only pursue one.
- Examiners want to see that you thought about perspectives before narrowing down.
