ToK Q&A December 2022

ToK Q&A: I’ve been receiving questions from ToK students around the world. I love to answer your questions, so I thought that I’d take some of the most frequently asked questions, and bundle them into a video. 

Question #1 : "What makes a good object for an Exhibition?"

This is a very straightforward question to answer, the May 2022 Subject Report makes it very clear. The best objects are ones that have some personal relevance to you, that bit’s easy. However - the personal relevance should also have a link to the prompt, it should have a knowledge link. So, if you’re answering the prompt “why do we seek knowledge?”, and your object is your childhood soft toy. The link is not because it was your favourite soft toy, the link could be because you first became interested in the motivation to seek knowledge when you read the “Made in Great Britain” label attached to the toy’s toe.

Going back to the original question - what makes a good object, I would say that the object is far less important than the way in which the object is used - the way in which you use the object to explore the knowledge link.

This is a similar answer as to what makes a good RLS in the Essay - but we’ll save that for a later post.

Q2: "Is it OK to include diagrams in Essay 5 May 2023 ? - the essay about Visual Representations"

The short answer to this question is yes it is, the slightly longer answer is why would you want to include diagrams ? Let me explain a little - if you include a diagram / chart it is your written explanation of that diagram / chart that the examiner will assess, not the diagram / chart, but it’s use in the exploration of the prescribed title. In my opinion if you are getting into the detail of explaining a specific chart / diagram you are probably spending too many words describing the RLS rather than exploring the PT.

Remember the PT is about knowledge rather than the specifics of any particular RLS - focus on trying to establish principles about knowledge production rather than analysing the RLS. I think that this particular PT is about the word ‘helpful’ rather than ways in which visual representations may or may not be accurate. If you want more information on Essay 5 you can watch my video for more details.

Q3: "I need to get a high score in ToK, but I am worried because it’s such an open ended subject - What if the Examiner has a different viewpoint to me ?"

OK, first thing is don’t worry, I don’t want you to waste energy on anxiety - if you work closely with your teacher, follow their advice you should get a good score in ToK.

Let’s briefly look at the two ToK assessments, and you should see that a good score is very achievable.

The Exhibition is marked by your teacher, and moderated by IB. Very rarely do IB moderate the teachers grade by more than 1 mark. Therefore, in most cases - what your teacher gives you for the Exhibition is the score that stands. So, you need to work closely with your teacher if you want a good score in the Exhibition, ask for, & listen to, their advice, pay close attention to the Draft feedback.

Let’s look at The Essay - The Essay is marked by an external IB Examiner, but The Examiner’s don’t mark the Essay according to their personal opinions. They have an assessment rubric that identifies specific things that they are looking for. Your teacher can you give you a copy of this - it’s called “The ToK Essay Assessment Instrument” - if you include the things that they are looking for in the rubric you should get a good score. Don’t worry - that’s wasted energy - just communicate with your teacher - they will show you how to get that high score.

Q4: "How can I write counterclaims ?"

So, first of all - there’s no requirement to write claims & counterclaims. There is a requirement to ‘explore’ the prompt, and to include knowledge arguments, evaluation of these arguments and implications of those arguments. The use of claims and counterclaims is just a useful way of structuring those requirements that some people find helpful.

Personally, I think that using the claim & counterclaim structure does help most students for most essays to meet the requirements - so I generally recommend it (you can see more on essay structures in the card I put above). 

That said, the difficulty that some people find in writing the counterclaim comes from, I think, a belief that the counterclaim has to be the direct  opposite of the claim - this is not the case. The counterclaim should be an alternative perspective of the claim, not necessarily the opposite, and this leaves you the opportunity to explore a number of possible counterclaims.

Let’s look at a simplified example: if your claim was that all swans are white. Your counterclaim does not necessarily have to be that not all swans are white. Your counterclaim could be some swans are sometimes white, or some swans are white when it fits their purpose, and so on. The counterclaim can be a variation of the claim as long as it introduces alternative knowledge arguments.

Q5: "Can students see the subject reports ?"

For those of you who don’t know - the subject report is a report written by the Chief Examiner after the exam session - it’s super useful as it explains what the examiners are looking for, and some of the common mistakes that they saw in the previous exam session.

The answer to the question of whether the subject report ids available to students  is yes, as far as i understand it students are allowed to see the ToK Subject - I’m not aware of any guidance from IB to the contrary, ToK teachers - if you know any contrary guidance please let me know. I have always shared the subject reports with my students, and used them to help them to prepare their ToK assessments - if I shouldn't have been doing this I’ll now be in trouble !

Check out the May 22 Subject Report (in diagram form) at this link (Essay), and this link (Exhibition).

OK, that’s enough for the December Q&A, we'll have another one in January. If you have questions that you would like me to address in future Q&As please don’t hesitate to send them to Daniel@TokToday.com.