Abu Posted January 9, 2009 Report Share Posted January 9, 2009 Yes, it can be moderated down or up.For starters, the criteria is subjective. It depends on how you've approached them on your essay right now. Effective links and comparisons: Show how you've linked knowledge issues with your experience, and how you've linked it all together in an essay to create an effective TOK essay.And so on, it highly depends on your essay. Someone with a better grasp of ToK can actually explain the terms better in a more coherent manner. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
master135 Posted January 9, 2009 Report Share Posted January 9, 2009 Isn't there the possibility of getting moderated down? Especially since it's a borderline A. OP - I dunno. I'd like to know too.There is no moderation for this essay I believe. The mark the OP got from his/her teacher does not matter at all since its treated as an external assessment. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
KiwiFruit Posted January 9, 2009 Report Share Posted January 9, 2009 Yes I beleive that there is moderation, and it can go up or down. My sister got a B and it went down to a C Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
deissi Posted January 9, 2009 Report Share Posted January 9, 2009 TOK essays are not moderated. They're externally assessed. Means that your teacher is not (very much not) supposed to give you a grade for it. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
FahaD Posted January 10, 2009 Report Share Posted January 10, 2009 TOK essays are not moderated. They're externally assessed. Means that your teacher is not (very much not) supposed to give you a grade for it.What about the presentations (IA). Are they moderated same as subject IA or differently since TOK is a core subject? Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aether Posted January 11, 2009 Report Share Posted January 11, 2009 I also chose this one, and as many of you have mentioned I used science as my main example. However, while I was literally burning my brain in this essay, I found out that even though we ask new questions about the new knowledge we find, we frequently need to go back to that knowledge gained and question how valid it is. I thought Miller was right at a beginning, but the more I thought about it the more I got to the conclusion that there is no such thing as "the expansion of the horizon of ignorance". Ignorance is always the same size, what expands is the awareness of our ignorance. So that is what I tried to prove in my essay in the end. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ph1000 Posted January 13, 2009 Report Share Posted January 13, 2009 I think that the main problem would be the definition of knowledge. I think that true knowledge can never be attained, and so as we "learn" new things, we are not sure as to how correct they are, since we will never truly know what the correct answer is, so everything we learn is ignorance since one day it will be proven incorrect and so those of one who learn that will only know ignorance. thus expanding the horizon of ignorance. For example pluto was thought of as a planet, it is no longer that, so for many years, those who learned that pluto was a planet were in reality expanding their ignorance. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Forester Posted January 13, 2009 Report Share Posted January 13, 2009 @Merit: Your reasoning would be correct if knowledge was finite. What if knowledge is infinite? If we do not expand our horizon of our ignorance, it means that sooner or later our ignorance will be zero as we would be aware of all our ignorance? Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aether Posted January 13, 2009 Report Share Posted January 13, 2009 @Merit: Your reasoning would be correct if knowledge was finite. What if knowledge is infinite? If we do not expand our horizon of our ignorance, it means that sooner or later our ignorance will be zero as we would be aware of all our ignorance?Yeah, you are right, that is exactly what I mentioned as one of the implications. I had such a big discussion with myself over this and in a part of my essay I tried to see things from the "knowledge is infinite" perspective, using it as a counterargument of my initial idea. I am so glad that all the questions you are asking me, are questions I asked myself while doing the essay. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Forester Posted January 14, 2009 Report Share Posted January 14, 2009 im using this as one of my arguments:"the more we know or the more we think we know, the more difficult it is for us to see or recognize new knowledge."do you know any philosopher who said this? lol Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
avrila Posted January 14, 2009 Report Share Posted January 14, 2009 However, while I was literally burning my brain in this essay, I found out that even though we ask new questions about the new knowledge we find, we frequently need to go back to that knowledge gained and question how valid it is. I thought Miller was right at a beginning, but the more I thought about it the more I got to the conclusion that there is no such thing as "the expansion of the horizon of ignorance". Ignorance is always the same size, what expands is the awareness of our ignorance. So that is what I tried to prove in my essay in the end.For me, your statement is neither wrong or right. As long as you can justify it clearly, it clearly, it shouldn't be any problem. I also argue with Miller's point by saying that it is the ignorance that come first before we acquire knowledge. Therefore, should the knowledge increase, our horizon of ignorance should lessen. But this is not the case as ignorance will keep expanding. Imagine knowledge is like something inside a circle. As our circle of knowledge getting bigger, so does the darkness that surround it. In my conclusion, I state that I agree with Milller. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Forester Posted January 14, 2009 Report Share Posted January 14, 2009 ^ Just trying to help, but the analogy you have used has been floating on the internet for a long time. If you use that in your real TOK essay, I am sure you will get marked down as a lot of people with access to google will use that example. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aether Posted January 14, 2009 Report Share Posted January 14, 2009 I agree, that was the same analogy my teacher used to explain the question to me. Better to use it ,only to understand the topic. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Senioritis_in_Action Posted January 15, 2009 Report Share Posted January 15, 2009 ok back to the topic:My opinion to this statement is: that we more know about something(like death, universe, life, ...) the more we actually don't know: it's like Socrates once said:"I am the wisest man alive; for I konw one thing, and that is that I don't know nothing."I imagine it like this: imagine a tree. When we discovered something new or found something (history, biology,...) out; this is the big branch of the tree. But as we know there are many little branches and these represent our ignorance. As we more know and big branches emerge, more little branches occur...in nature there are no "big" branches without "little" branches...I hope I could give u a little more understanding of this topic...I know my image is a little complicated ...sry:)That's basically the conclusion I reached - knowledge is interconnected and all that, right? The more you know, the more you realize you still have yet to learn - you can't ponder the specific until you know the general, and human beings are curious by nature. There was also something about how prior assumptions force us to confront our ignorance when they are disproved - see the Human Genome Project and Epigenetics. That's a really good real-world natural-sciences tie-in for this topic. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Forester Posted January 15, 2009 Report Share Posted January 15, 2009 When you say something like: "Human beings are curious by nature", is that a generalization? I have said that in my essay as well, and was wondering if I'd get marks taken off for statements like that above. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Senioritis_in_Action Posted January 15, 2009 Report Share Posted January 15, 2009 I don't think it's a generalization if you back it up with examples. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aether Posted January 15, 2009 Report Share Posted January 15, 2009 I also used a sentence like that in my essay. It said something like: Humans are always in an endless and constant quest for knowledge. I know it sounds sooo exaggerated, but I couldn´t phrase it in any other way... so I ended trying to explain it as best as I could. However, in some tips our teacher gave us about ToK essays it said don´t use grandiose and rather meaningless sentences like " Human kind has always been haunted by the misteries of the universe." and stuff like that. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
GSG Posted January 26, 2009 Report Share Posted January 26, 2009 (edited) Hello i have a few questions. i have read that as we discover new knowledge, we learn there is more to learn and this way find more knowledge.... but can we ever know everything..say what happens when we reach the limits of knowledge in a particular area like medical science and does this mean we have reached the limits of scientific knowledge? Edited January 27, 2009 by GSG Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Forester Posted January 27, 2009 Report Share Posted January 27, 2009 Depends how you approach the question - do you think knowledge in any specific area is finite or infinite? Personally I dealt with the question in two parts - 1. assuming that knowledge is infinite (it was the majority of my argument) and then 2. I cross examined it with the situation when knowledge could be finite.I think humans are really insignificant compared with everything in the universe and I seriously doubt we would reach the limit of knowledge in any area. To assume we can reach it we have to assume that human life will exist forever. To assume that human life will exist forever is .... optimistic. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
GSG Posted January 27, 2009 Report Share Posted January 27, 2009 (edited) WHen you looked at knowledge from a finite point of view, did you make assumptions of what can happen. How did you explain your situation.Also how does math relate to this topic...can anyone give me examples... Edited January 27, 2009 by GSG Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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