Tok Exhibition: Connect the object to the prompt (the best way).

The second thing assessors are looking for in the ToK Exhibition Commentary is the link between the object and the prompt. Today, I’m going to show you how easy it is to smash this part of the Exhibition. And if you want to know what the first thing that assessors are looking for in the ToK Exhibition keep watching to the end.

Explaining the link between the object and the prompt should be a very straightforward part of the ToK Exhibition Commentary. It’s so straightforward that some students forget to do it, and that just makes it far harder to score well on other parts of the commentary. So let’s look at some good practices on how to write this link.

Good practice 1: the link should be explicit, or direct. 

An explicit or direct link uses a phrase like “the link between this object and the prompt is”. Or “This object is linked to the prompt by”. You get the idea. Subtle, it is not. Neither is it refined in form, and reason and majesty. But it gets the job done, ensuring that any assessor can say that the link between object and prompt is made.

Good Practice number 2:  the link should also be made in the description of the object.

In the November 2024 Subject Report the Chief Examiner gave us some very good advice on how to write the link between the object and the prompt. They said “a reader should know the title just from the object's description”. In this case “the title” means the chosen prompt. Ie the assessor should know which prompt you’ve chosen just from the description of the object. Therefore, the only parts of the object that you describe are the parts that help you to link the object to the prompt. Let’s look at some quick examples.

For example You’ve chosen Prompt #6 How does the way that we organize or classify knowledge affect what we know? Your object is Colonel David Collins’ 1802 book “An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales”. Your description of this object should be that it contains a description of the first British encounter with a Platypus, and details of the difficulties of classifying a platypus. You don’t need to tell us who Colonel David Collins was, why he was in Australia, what his Mum’s favourite food was etc etc. Just the bit of the object that is relevant to the prompt, in this case it contains an explanation of the difficulty of classifying knowledge.

Here’s a second example:

You’ve chosen prompt #22:  What role do experts play in influencing our consumption or acquisition of knowledge? Your object is the painting The Man with the Golden Helmet, once attributed to Rembrandt. In your description of the painting you will explain that the painting was attributed to Rembrandt until 1985, when its attribution was changed by experts. There’s no need to describe what the painting looks like, who is portrayed in a painting, nor why a person might wear a golden helmet. The message is that the description of the object should help to make the link to the prompt.

Good Practice #3 : Consider all of the words in the prompt when linking to the prompt.

You have to explain how the object is linked to the whole prompt rather than just part of the prompt. So, for example, if we take Prompt 12: Is bias inevitable in the production of knowledge? The object may be a politician’s Tik ToK feed, and the link may be that the politician is biased. However, this doesn’t take into account two other parts of the prompt - firstly how does the politician’s tik tok feed constitute the production of knowledge ? secondly, and most crucially, how does the tik tok feed link to whether bias is inevitable ? You don’t have to say that it shows that bias is inevitable, you just have to show how it answers the question about inevitability.

Let’s look at another example, Prompt 13: How can we know that current knowledge is an improvement upon past knowledge? The object chosen is a smartphone, and the link is that the smartphone is better than analogue phones, telegrams, and snail mail. This is horrendously misinterpreted, and weak ToK, but it is also very very typical. Anyway, the object & link sort of demonstrates that “maybe” current knowledge is an improvement upon past knowledge. However, it doesn’t begin to address how we can know that current knowledge is an improvement upon past knowledge. It completely misses a crucial part of the prompt. So, the summary here is show the link to the whole prompt, and not just part of the prompt. 

If you want more help with your ToK Exhibition I have many more videos on the ToK Today channel, just go to the Exhibition Playlist, or the Exhibition Samples Playlist to see specific prompts fully explained. If you want even more help then consider picking up one of the Exhibition prompts explained e-books, they give full explanations of knowledge arguments, suggestions for objects, links to prompts etc. All that you need to get a high score on the Exhibition. 

Now, At the beginning of this blog I told you that the link between the object and the prompt is the second thing that assessors are looking for when marking the ToK Exhibition commentary, and I promised to tell you what the first thing is that they look for at the end of the blog. Well, the first thing that they look for is called the real world context of the object, and if you want to know what that is then check out the video linked here.

Good luck with your Exhibition, and stay Toktastic.

Daniel, Lisboa, June 2025.