The TOK exhibition rubric
After understanding the basic requirements of the exhibition, your next step is to grasp how it is evaluated and marked, which is outlined in the ‘assessment instrument’. Your TOK teacher will give you a copy of this, or you can find it online in the 2022 TOK Guide.
Our 3-minute explainer for the TOK exhibition provides an overview of the assessment task, and mentions the rubric. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to keep up to date with all our TOK videos.
The TOK exhibition assessment strands
The overall assessment objective of the exhibition is to show how theory of knowledge manifests itself in the real world. In order to do this, the assessment ‘instrument’ looks for four different skills that you are expected to demonstrate in your exhibition.
Make sure you understand what each strand is, and that you are able to explain how you’ve included each one. To find out more about each aspect of the exhibition (IA prompts, objects and commentary), follow the links that take you to the other pages of the TOK exhibition.
1. Interlinking ideas
Your exhibition commentary should clearly explain the links between the objects you have chosen, and the IA prompt, and explicit references are made to the selected IA prompt.
2. Justifying ideas
Your exhibition commentary should include a strong justification for why your have objects have been chosen for the practice exhibition. This should be done within the context of the core theme, or one of the optional themes.
3. Using evidence
All the points you make in your commentary should be well-supported by evidence. In other words, all of your ideas and opinions should be supported by real-life situations, or the ideas of key thinkers.
4. Identifying the real-world context
The exhibition clearly identifies three objects and their specific real-world context. These means choosing actual objects (or images of objects), rather than generic objects.
TOK exhibition pages
The TOK exhibition rubric
Learn about how the exhibition is marked, and the skills you are expected to demonstrate in order to succeed. Find out more here.
The TOK exhibition prompts
Find out about the IA prompts used to write your exhibition commentary, and tips on choosing the right one. Read more here.
The TOK exhibition objects
Find out what ‘exhibition objects’ are, how to choose effective ones, and linking them to a theme and prompt. Read more here.
The TOK exhibition commentary
Learn about the 950-word exhibition commentary, ways to link it to your IA prompt, and how to set it within a theme. Find out more here.
Putting on the exhibition
Get tips on how to set up a TOK exhibition, talking in public, and showing off your TOK knowledge to a public audience. Find out more here.
More support for the TOK exhibition
Make sure that your TOK teacher has given you access to all the documents and online material that support the exhibition. These include the TOK Subject Guide (for the 2022 syllabus) – where you’ll find the IA prompts, and the exhibition rubric – and the exemplar TOK exhibitions (found in ‘MyIB’, which is accessible to teachers).
Follow the links above to take you to the three different elements of the TOK exhibition; we’ve also created a page giving some tips on how to put on your exhibition if your school is running a public ‘exhibition day’ which you can visit here. It suggests ways of presenting ideas to an audience.
If your school is a member of theoryofknowledge.net, we have designed a series of lessons on the exhibition, with a three practice exhibition tasks. These will familiarize you with the IA prompts, how to select effective objects, and the assessment rubric. If you are signed into the site, you can access these lessons here.
You can also find out our thoughts on the TOK exhibition (and the TOK essay) in several webinars that we have delivered. The main one is the TOK Assessment 2022 webinar, but we also consider this form of assessment in our free webinars on the 2022 course. You can see these webinars on this page of the site.
FAQs about the exhibition rubric
Who marks the TOK exhibition?
The exhibition commentary, and images of the three objects (along with references) is added to an exhibition file. This is marked internally by your TOK teacher, and uploaded to your IB dashboard, to be moderated externally. Your TOK teacher will explain this process in more detail.
Where can I view the complete TOK exhibition rubric?
You can read the whole rubric in the TOK subject guide, on page 47. Your TOK teacher will give you a copy of this.
What makes a TOK exhibition ‘very good’?
The rubric identifies three key characteristics of a very good (ie 9/10 out of 10) exhibition. These are: precise, lucid, convincing. The formative assessment tasks you do for the exhibition will help you understand what these means.
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