Eight questions for each of the six May 2027 prescribed titles. No model answers, no examples handed to you. Just the questions a good TOK teacher would ask, so your essay is your own thinking.
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Academic honesty first. These cards don't write anything for you. Follow your school's and the IB's academic integrity rules, and get the exact title wording from your TOK teacher. Not affiliated with or endorsed by the International Baccalaureate.
Title 1 · The artist or the historian?
Areas of knowledge: Arts and history. Use your teacher's copy for the exact title wording.
Question 1What does 'appreciation of the human experience' mean to you: knowing what happened, or knowing what it felt like?
Question 2Can a painting or novel be 'wrong' about the past in the way a history book can?
Question 3What does a historian deliberately leave out, and what does an artist deliberately add?
Question 4Is a better appreciation the one that's more accurate or the one that moves you more? Could they come apart?
Question 5Think of one event you understand mainly through art (film, song, novel). What did that give you that a textbook couldn't?
Question 6Who decides whether an artwork about the past is 'truthful'?
Question 7Can history itself be a kind of art? Where does narrative choice come in?
Question 8What would someone who disagrees with your answer point to first?
Title 2 · Values that change over time
Areas of knowledge: Two areas of knowledge, your choice. Use your teacher's copy for the exact title wording.
Question 1Name one value that guided knowledge-making 100 years ago and doesn't now. What changed it?
Question 2If values change, are they guides or just fashions? What's the difference?
Question 3Is a value that changes slowly more trustworthy than one that changes fast?
Question 4Which values in your chosen AOKs seem never to change? Are they really fixed?
Question 5Can knowledge produced under old values still be trusted today?
Question 6Who gets to change the values of a discipline?
Question 7Is it a problem or a strength that values change?
Question 8What example would make your own argument uncomfortable?
Title 3 · Reliable knowledge built on assumptions
Areas of knowledge: Human sciences + one other. Use your teacher's copy for the exact title wording.
Question 1List three assumptions a survey or economics model makes before it starts. Which would hurt most if false?
Question 2Is there any knowledge that rests on no assumptions at all?
Question 3What's the difference between an assumption, an axiom and a bias?
Question 4How do human scientists test their assumptions, if at all?
Question 5Can a result be reliable even when its assumptions are known to be false? Think of models.
Question 6Who notices hidden assumptions, insiders or outsiders?
Question 7Compare how your second AOK handles assumptions. Is it better or just different?
Question 8What would 'reliable enough' mean in each AOK?
Title 4 · Is any coincidence worth noticing?
Areas of knowledge: Mathematics + one other. Use your teacher's copy for the exact title wording.
Question 1In maths, what turns a pattern you noticed into knowledge?
Question 2Find a case where a 'coincidence' in maths turned out to be deep, and one where it didn't. What separated them?
Question 3What's the cost of noticing too many coincidences? Think of conspiracy thinking.
Question 4Who decides when to 'throw it away'? What evidence would do it?
Question 5Does the claim work the same way for a detective as for a scientist?
Question 6How does your second AOK separate signal from noise?
Question 7Is noticing a skill you can train? How?
Question 8What would a sceptic of the claim say first?
Title 5 · Should simplicity win?
Areas of knowledge: Two areas of knowledge, your choice. Use your teacher's copy for the exact title wording.
Question 1What do people actually mean by 'simpler': fewer assumptions, fewer parts, easier to understand?
Question 2Find a case where the simpler explanation won and was wrong.
Question 3Is simplicity a sign of truth or just a convenience for humans?
Question 4Does the preference for simplicity differ between your two AOKs?
Question 5Who benefits when an explanation is simple? Who loses?
Question 6Can an explanation be too simple to be useful?
Question 7How would you know you'd prioritised simplicity too much?
Question 8What's the strongest counter-example to your thesis?
Title 6 · The paradoxical and the counterintuitive
Areas of knowledge: Natural sciences + one other. Use your teacher's copy for the exact title wording.
Question 1Name a counterintuitive scientific result. What made people accept it?
Question 2Is 'counterintuitive' a fact about the world or about us?
Question 3What value does a paradox have if it's never resolved?
Question 4When should we trust intuition over a strange result, and when not?
Question 5How does your second AOK treat ideas that feel wrong but might be right?
Question 6Can exploring paradoxes waste time? How would you tell?
Question 7Who gets to decide a counterintuitive claim is worth exploring?
Question 8What example would challenge your own view?
How to use the deck
Pick the title you're most unsure about, not the one that looks easiest.
Answer each card out loud in under a minute. Record yourself if you can.
Circle the two cards you couldn't answer. Your essay's best paragraph is probably hiding there.
Come back tomorrow and answer those two again from memory.
Want someone to ask you these out loud? Ask Poppy is an AI tutor you talk or type to. It asks questions and gives one hint at a time instead of handing you the answer, and it remembers where you left off so you can pick it up again tomorrow.
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The six prescribed titles were released to schools in September 2026. In short, they cover the artist versus the historian, changing values, knowledge built on assumptions, noticing coincidences, preferring simplicity, and the paradoxical or counterintuitive. Get the exact wording from your TOK teacher.
Can I use AI for my TOK essay?
Follow your school's and the IB's academic integrity rules. Work that AI produces isn't your own work, and any use must be acknowledged as your school requires. These cards are questions only: they help you think, they don't give you a thesis or examples.
How should I use these question cards?
Pick one title. Answer each question out loud, or to a friend, before writing anything. Notice which questions you can't answer yet. Those are where your essay's real thinking is.
Ask Poppy, the AI tutor that asks instead of tells. Free, 30 messages a day · iPhone, iPad, Mac