*This article is part of the TOK Roadmap — a visual, all-in-one guide I created to help you ace Theory of Knowledge. [View the full roadmap here.]

In this post,

• I break down the rubric for TOK Exhibition sentence by sentence.

The TOK Exhibition Rubric by IB

The official IB rubric for TOK exhibition is the following:

Does the exhibition successfully show how TOK manifests in the world around us?

source: IBO

Breakdown of each sentence

Let’s break down each sentence of what a 9-10 essay requires.

1) “The exhibition clearly identifies three objects and their specific real-world contexts.”

This checks whether each of your three objects is a real object and has a specific context: the What, When, Where, and Who. Read about choosing good objects here.

A bad example would be a stock photo of a telescope—examiners don’t know what model it is, when it was produced or used, where it was purchased or set up, nor who used it. A good object is often a unique object; only one of them exists in the world. So, an iphone you had back in 7th grade can be a valid object, but you must explain how it is unique to you and to the prompt. Be aware that there are millions of other iphones of the same model. If you can make the same argument just as well with another iphone on the market, it’s probably not a good object.

Make sure to write out the real-world context so it’s clear to the examiners.

2) Links between each of the three objects and the selected IA prompt are clearly made and well-explained.

After you introduce your object and its context, you must directly state how the object is linked to the prompt. Don’t make your teacher guess. Use clear signal phrases like “this object is directly linked to the prompt because…” or “this object answers the prompt by…” or “I chose this object because…” etc. I also talked about one-to-one mapping between keywords in the prompt and your object. If you’re having a hard time with this, it’s probably not a good object.

One more thing: Step 2 from the article on writing a paragraph is important here. Before your teacher and IB (when they moderate it) look at how you made the link, they first need to understand what the object is. Do not assume they already have background knowledge about your object.

3) There is a strong justification of the particular contribution that each individual object makes to the exhibition.

You need to use evidence to back up your claim that your object is linked to the prompt. If it’s a personal object, your own experience with it is valid evidence. Otherwise, try to use reliable resources (reputable newspapers, online magazines, research papers, museum websites, etc) to support your ideas. Don’t use Wikipedia articles about your object.

4) All, or nearly all, of the points are well-supported by appropriate evidence and explicit references to the selected IA prompt.

‘Explicit references’ is key here. I recommend that you use keywords from the prompt directly in your paragraph. If ‘pursuit of knowledge’ is in your prompt, use the exact phrase in your answer whenever you can!

One of the biggest mistakes students make is changing how they phrase keywords, for example changing ‘pursuit of knowledge’ to ‘production of knowledge’ to simply ‘gaining knowledge.’ Always make sure you are not subconsciously changing the meaning of keywords. The best way to avoid this? Use them exactly as they appear.

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