IB TOK Knowledge Questions Explained: What a KQ Is & How to Spot One [IB1]

TOK: what a knowledge question is. This answer scores zero.

The student saw a deep-sounding question and said yes. Can you see the mistake?

Will it rain tomorrow is about the weather, not about knowledge. So the answer is no.

That's one mark of this six-mark TOK quiz. Five more, and each one hides a trap like that.

So what does a real knowledge question look like? And how do you test one?

Here's a quick rule with three tests. Test one. It's about knowledge itself, not about a topic. What is the speed of light? That's a fact. How do scientists know the speed of light? Now you're asking about knowledge.

Test two. It's open. Smart people can disagree, and you can't just look the answer up. Test three. It uses TOK concepts, like evidence, certainty, interpretation or justification. Those are the three tests. Mark two.

So, will it rain tomorrow? Which test does it fail first? About knowledge, open, or TOK concepts?

About knowledge. It asks about the weather, and a weather app settles it. Mark three. But here's the twist. Your app says rain. Your friend's app says sun. Now there's a knowledge question hiding in there.

So how do you turn it into one? You lift it up a level. Don't ask about tomorrow's rain. Ask about the knowledge behind the forecast.

Here's one way to write it. How certain can we be about predictions made by models? Run the tests. It's about knowledge. It's open. And certainty is a TOK concept. Mark four. Notice that the weather is gone. So can you spot a fake one?

Try the same move in Biology. Which of these is the knowledge question? How do vaccines work? Is this vaccine safe? Or, how much evidence is enough to trust a scientific claim?

The third one. A scientist answers the first two with data. The third asks about evidence itself. See the ladder? A topic, then a claim, then knowledge.

You're the TOK teacher now. Three students wrote a knowledge question about history. Give each one a tick for every test it passes.

Question A. When did the Berlin Wall fall? You can look it up. Zero ticks. Question B. Was my history teacher biased? It's open, and bias is a TOK idea. But it's about one person, not about knowledge. Two ticks. Question C. How does a historian's perspective shape what we know about the past? Three ticks.

Here's the trap. B sounds clever, but it's about one person. A real knowledge question is about how we know, so check all three tests, every time.

Now try one on your own. Why do I believe my doctor? Pause if you want to try it first; here it is.

First, take out the person. It's not about your doctor. It's about experts. Then ask about knowledge. On what basis do we trust experts, when we can't check their knowledge ourselves? It's about knowledge, it's open, and it's about justification. Mark five.

One more trap. What is truth? It passes the tests, but it's so huge that you can't tie it to a real example. So keep a real situation in sight, like the two weather apps. So where will you actually use knowledge questions?

In two places. First, the TOK essay. The I-B sets six titles for your exam session, and you write on one. Each title is a general question about knowledge. In up to sixteen hundred words, you explore it, with your own examples from different areas of knowledge.

Second, the TOK exhibition. You choose one of thirty-five prompts, and three objects that connect to it. In up to nine hundred and fifty words, you explain how each object links to the prompt. Those prompts are written as knowledge questions too. So it's one skill for both. Mark six. Check the details and your dates with your TOK teacher.

The three tests? Knowledge, open, TOK concepts. Will it rain tomorrow? Not a knowledge question. Where do they go? The essay and the exhibition.

How do you back up a knowledge question with a real example? That's next Sunday.