How accurate are ToKToday Essay Guidance Notes ?
With hundreds of students using the ToKToday Essay Guidance notes annually, ensuring their accuracy and alignment with IB examiner expectations is essential. In today’s blog I will explain how I check the accuracy of the ToKToday Essay Guidance Notes, and look at 2 May 2024 Essays in more detail.
The Purpose of ToKToday Essay Guidance Notes
At ToKToday, we produce Essay Guidance Notes for each ToK Essay prescribed title (PT) for the May and November exam sessions. These notes function as a mini-textbook for each essay. They are not model essays, but rather explorations of the sorts of knowledge claims, examples, and evaluation points that students might incorporate into their work.
Our goal is to help students achieve top grades in ToK. To do that, we need to verify that the advice in these notes aligns with what IB examiners are looking for. This post explains the process I use to check the accuracy of the notes and presents findings from the May 2024 session.
How I Check the Accuracy of ToKToday Notes
When IB releases the ToK Essay prescribed titles, I begin writing the guidance notes. This process takes about a month, with publication in October for the May session and April for the November session. At this point, the only information available is the essay titles themselves—there are no official insights from IB about how examiners will interpret them.
However, just before examiners begin marking essays, IB provides them with Examiner Preparation Notes. These confidential notes, written by the Chief Examiner, outline key points examiners should credit and suggest legitimate ways to approach each essay. My challenge is to anticipate the content of these notes when creating the student guidance materials.
Roughly a year after the exam session, IB publishes these Examiner Preparation Notes, allowing me to compare them with my guidance notes. This comparison helps refine the notes for future sessions, ensuring continuous improvement.
Evaluating the May 2024 ToKToday Notes
To assess accuracy, I compared the May 2024 ToKToday Student Guidance Notes (published in October 2023) with the IB Examiner Preparation Notes (published to examiners in April 2024 and publicly released in December 2024). I conducted this evaluation in two stages:
1. Manual Comparison: I read through both sets of notes, identifying similarities and differences.
2. AI Analysis: I used ChatGPT to conduct an objective comparison, requesting a similarity score and analysis of content alignment.
Example 1: PT1 (May 2024) - "Is subjectivity overly celebrated in the arts, but unfairly condemned in history?"
- Key Points from Examiner Notes:
- Exploration of subjectivity from the perspectives of both artists and historians.
- Consideration of why subjectivity might be overly celebrated or unfairly condemned.
- Suggestions for students to challenge the PT by arguing that subjectivity is rightly celebrated or condemned.
- Knowledge issues such as the objective elements in art and the inherent subjectivity in history.
- Comparison Results:
- All key points in the examiner notes were covered in the ToKToday guidance notes.
- Additional insights in the ToKToday notes not explicitly mentioned in the examiner notes.
- ChatGPT Similarity Score: 90% alignment.
ChatGPT noted that while the documents showed strong alignment, the examiner notes delved deeper into nuances like the role of subjectivity in methodology and reflective questions about who celebrates or condemns subjectivity. Some omissions in the student notes included discussions on the fair condemnation of subjectivity and specific pitfalls of subjectivity in history.
Example 2: PT5 (May 2024) - "Do we need custodians of knowledge?"
- Comparison Results:
- ChatGPT Similarity Score: 88% alignment.
- The examiner notes provided more comprehensive discussions on definitions, evaluation criteria, and the dynamic roles of custodians, areas that were less developed in the student notes.
ChatGPT highlighted gaps such as the evolving role of custodianship and more detailed evaluations of custodianship.
Reflections on the Results
I’m pleased that the ToKToday notes show approximately 90% alignment with IB Examiner Preparation Notes. This indicates that the guidance provided is highly accurate and beneficial for students aiming for top grades.
However, the real value lies in the process of conducting these comparisons. By analysing each session, I:
- Gain deeper insights into examiner expectations.
- Learn about common interpretations of essay questions and key concepts.
- Identify areas where my guidance can be further improved.
Using AI as a self-evaluation tool has been particularly valuable for refining content and maintaining high standards.
Final Thoughts
I hope this post provides both students and educators with greater confidence in the accuracy and reliability of the ToKToday Essay Guidance Notes. If you have suggestions, feedback, or insights on how you use AI for personal development, feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.
Thank you for reading—and as always, stay ToKTastic!
Daniel, Lisbon, Feb 2025
