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Writing a ToK essay in 4 hours


Tilia

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My teacher (who has been examiner for 15 years and was deputy chief examiner for five years) gave us advice on how to write a ToK essay in 4 hours and I thought that I might as well share this with you XD

Brainstorm the title. What is the knowledge issue? - 20 min

Find examples that illustrate the knowledge issue. It is good to have some detailed examples from different areas of knowledge, think HL subjects - 20 min

Identify important concepts to introduce in order to understand these examples, define them using short examples - 10 min

Identify two or more sides to the positions regarding the knowlegde issue - 10 min

Find arguments that support each position to the controversy - 20 min

Evaluate these arguments, look for strengths and weaknesses. Which is more plausible? - 10 min

Try to find assumptions underlying the arguments and the complete analysis. Eg, gender, age, philosophy, ethnic and cultural background, religion might be important. - 10 min

Write an outline - 20 min

Write the essay - 2 hours

Edited by Tilia
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It seems odd to spend so much time on the title :) ..all my titles take 5 mins or less, and I make them up at the end of the essay lol.

I think she means analyzing the title and searching for what areas of knowledge can be used in the essay based on what the title is talking about ;)

And I agree with Elsa... I have the attention span of a gnat.

Although, I do recall writing my essay in a short amount of time!

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this assuming you're nit a dyslexic mess, and can actually focus for 4 hours at a time which is rare in the student population :)

Well, you're not supposed to write it in one go. And I think it's better to be focused for a short time and than be done with it, instead of procrastinating for several hours ;)

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I still think TOK should be a 30-45 min externally-assessed exam you take in May.

So much more efficient for us, then to do it all along this stretch :)

I can see where a lot of people would find this really appealing. However, being an individual with horrible test anxiety, I much prefer the current system. I didn't even mind spending several hours on the essay, because I found it kind of...fun. In addition, I did some supplementary research for my topic, which I wouldn't have been able to do if it were in essay format.

Yeah, I'm biased. I know. ;)

Anyway, I think that timeline sounds pretty good. The proportions of time that I spent on each section are almost exactly the same to your timeline, although I took more than four hours. This is pretty interesting, though.

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I still think TOK should be a 30-45 min externally-assessed exam you take in May.

So much more efficient for us, then to do it all along this stretch :blink:

You'd have to think of some examples pretty fast then, and it takes me a long time to churn out any philosophical stuff that doesn't just go around in circles.

I suppose TOK is supposed to be a process of development. When I read my first practice essays I think "That's just bad". I haven't read the last one since I submitted it, but anything has to be better than "I think Math is the most reliable area of knowledge because you can always get an answer to every single problem you are asked to work out, and there is only one solution".

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I think its mostly cause I was an idiot, like usual. I want to stamp I-D-I-O-T on my forehead. I wrote for title 3, but turns out it was a good start for title 2. So I wrote 2 and 3, and then I went with 2 and revised it. Really um not needed. I could have picked up more in other classes. But A prediction so whatever, I am over it :)

It just seems like 30 min for SAT is the same thing. You have to fuss up examples so fast. My last one I took for ACT, I was going out of my mind sweating. I knew I was not going to be happy with the scores, and here are these nice group of prestigious men who thought it was a good idea to put a 30 min essay at the end of my failure!!

topic: Write about someone you looked up to who failed.

Normally, the smart thing in my head was - make it complicated. Come on!:) you can do it!! mess this up too !!

So i started talking about how the Brian Cox who works for Hadron Collider was overly optimistic for an experiment that failed the public and I described his presentations for TED and how physics itself is not a promising act. Somewhere along there, I wrote about Emily ****inson and her Chasm. Point being: in the end I had no idea what I was talking about, and I was sure to go off topic and fall into a chasm of my own. turns out I got a 12. And mostly likely that A in TOK will get washed down to a C or something.

Sorry I needed to spit that out. But yes yes. I see what you are saying. Just, bonus points, condensed into 30 minutes sounds so much more sweet.

Now I want tell you how I think EE should be a 5 hour paper exam. No No. Much too soon to introduce that idea (O_O).

yeah but for TOK!? why not..then the presentation would way heavy on our minds and be the fun-only thing we have to worry about.

Examples can fly if you just get pressed for time ^_^

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I still think TOK should be a 30-45 min externally-assessed exam you take in May.

So much more efficient for us, then to do it all along this stretch :(

You'd have to think of some examples pretty fast then, and it takes me a long time to churn out any philosophical stuff that doesn't just go around in circles.

I suppose TOK is supposed to be a process of development. When I read my first practice essays I think "That's just bad". I haven't read the last one since I submitted it, but anything has to be better than "I think Math is the most reliable area of knowledge because you can always get an answer to every single problem you are asked to work out, and there is only one solution".

I agree with you. You want some time to think about examples and some time to look them up in text books :P ToK shouldn't be done under stress, it is not like the other subjects at all. When it comes to the exams, I think you'll be glad to have EE and ToK done.

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