Choose specific objects for your TOK exhibition

Begin with one official exhibition prompt

The TOK exhibition uses three objects with accompanying commentaries to explore how TOK appears in the world. Choose an official exhibition prompt with your teacher's guidance and retain its exact wording. Keep the same prompt visible while evaluating every candidate object. This makes it easier to identify a promising connection or notice that you have drifted into a different question.

The sample prompt 'On what grounds might we doubt a claim?' provides an illustrative starting point for this guide. Use your own objects and reasoning, and confirm the prompt against your current course materials.

Find objects whose context you can establish

Create a list of particular physical or digital objects. 'A weather app' is an object type; a saved forecast screenshot for a named school trip on a specific date is an identifiable object. Record what it is, when and where it was used, who produced it and how you obtained the image.

Prefer objects whose details you can verify. A striking image with an unknown origin can make your commentary depend on assumptions. Personal familiarity can supply useful context, but the TOK point still needs a clear explanation supported by evidence.

Test the link using the actual object

For the hypothetical forecast screenshot, you might explore whether conflicting observations justify doubt in a prediction. Specify what the forecast claimed and when it was produced. If it predicted conditions for another location or time, your observation may not contradict it. Those details change the knowledge issue.

Write three planning sentences: identify the object, explain the relevant context, and explain why that context helps explore the prompt. If the third sentence could apply to any screenshot, look more closely at what makes this particular object useful.

Give each object a different contribution

Compare your candidates by the grounds for doubt they help examine. An illustrative set might include the forecast screenshot, a specific corrected school announcement and a particular advertisement whose claim depends on an incomplete comparison. These examples point towards different issues: interpreting observations, revising information and inspecting the basis of a persuasive claim.

Do not assume that this set is automatically suitable. Establish each object's real context and justify its contribution. If two objects make essentially the same point, try a different candidate or develop a genuinely distinct link.

Draft around the link and its justification

Use the necessary context to make the knowledge issue understandable, then devote space to the object's relationship with the prompt and why it belongs in your exhibition. Avoid lengthy biographies or technical descriptions that do not help this explanation. The overall commentary maximum is 950 words; check the counting rules in your course materials.

• Identify each object clearly in its image and commentary.
• Support factual claims about its context with appropriate references.
• Explain its particular contribution to the selected prompt.
• Refer back to the prompt's wording where the connection needs clarification.

Read the three commentaries together

Check whether all three objects connect to the same prompt and whether their contributions remain distinct. Verify image references, quotations and contextual facts. Ask whether a reader unfamiliar with the objects could understand your reasoning. Use teacher feedback within the support permitted for the task, then submit according to your school's exhibition requirements and deadline.