The TOK essay question analysis process
Before beginning to write your 1,600-word TOK essay, you should start with understanding the essay title. While this process might take a while, it will make planning your essay a much smoother and less confusing process.
Question Analysis
How to:
Consider what the examiner is really getting at and identify the keywords.
Use your own words to rephrase the question in a way that helps you understand it better. This can also include splitting the question into simpler sub-questions.
Define these key terms (in a TOK context).
If they are not already given, choose the areas of knowledge you would use for this question.
Once you have done your analysis, you should be clear on the path that the essay can take and when you go into the planning stage, you will not go off-topic if you consistently refer to it. Additionally, you have already completed part of your introduction!
Below is an example of a question analysis:
Note - There can always be more than one way of understanding an essay title.
“Reliable knowledge can lack certainty.” Explore this claim with reference to two areas of knowledge.
In this question, reliability and certainty are the keywords. For me I understand reliability to be knowledge we can trust or consistently lead us to the truth and certainty to be how sure we are that something is correct or accurate.
However, it is also crucial to take note of the term “can”. I highlight this because it allows me to better understand what the examiner is trying to ask: whether certainty acts as a prerequisite for reliable knowledge. This is very different from saying reliable knowledge has no certainty or is totally certain. This will be a detrimental mistake as it would lead to a seemingly similar essay that does not answer the title.
Finally, I chose the AOKs: the natural sciences and history.
This was a rather straightforward question but it still takes time to fully internalise. Especially for titles which are more complex (like those with quotes), it is all the more important that you make sense of the question in your own head and that you know exactly what is being asked.
The process of analysing the question will allow you to better appreciate it and see if there is potential in you making an entire essay of it. This is a process you can conduct on questions that stand out to you and ideally, you would be able to make a more informed decision and choose the question you are most comfortable with to write your essay on.