RLS
/ KQ Pairs
These sets of Real Life Situations and Knowledge
Questions are taken from the 2009 to 2014 TOK Subject Reports.
Real life situation: BBC article: Why the
brain sees maths as beauty
Knowledge issue: What is the role of
aesthetic pleasure in mathematical knowledge?
Real life situation: The assassination of John
Kennedy 50 years ago
Knowledge Issue: How can we separate myth
from reality in history?
Real life situation: Article in The
Economist regarding the success of modern science
Knowledge Issue: Does competitiveness in
science augment the production of knowledge?
Real life situation: Map showing the top
twenty world arms exporters
Knowledge Issue: Does the possession of
knowledge carry an ethical responsibility?
Real life situation: 2013 Nobel Prize in
economics given to trio who disagree about market efficiency
Knowledge Issue: What is the role of
disagreement in the production of knowledge?
Real life situation: Examples of geographical
maps which distort the territory
Knowledge issue: How can distorted
representations give us knowledge?
Real life situation: The correlation between
smoking and lung cancer
Knowledge Issue: How does emotion help or
hinder our understanding of correlation?
Real life situation: UN warns of looming food crisis in 2013
Knowledge Issue: How do we know what is a fact?
Real life situation: The Ekeko amulet of the Andean Altiplano believed to bring wealth to its worshipper.
Knowledge Issue: Why do people hold beliefs for which there is no evidence?
Real life situation: Wiki Leaks and the publication of secret information and
news leaks.
Knowledge issue: Should there be censorship of knowledge for the public
good?
Real life situation: The works of Salvador Dali
Knowledge Issue: To what extent do we have to know about an artist to understand
his or her art?
Real life situation: Attempted assassination of Pakistani girl Malala Yousafzai for promoting
girls¡¦ education.
Knowledge Issue: Why do we need a tragedy before we act on knowledge that we
have?
Knowledge Issue: To what extent can we use reason to evaluate two competing
ethical systems?
Real life situation: Renaming of cities in
Knowledge Issue: To what extent do labels affect our perception?
Real-life situation: Vesalius in 1543 disproving the Galen theory that men had a
rib less than women
Knowledge Issue: What is the role of emotion in shaping our beliefs?
Real-life situation: Whistle-blower Edward Snowden and NSA¡¦s
obtaining of American telephone records
Knowledge Issue: How do we know which perspective to believe?
Real-life situation: Airbrushed make-up advertisements banned because they
mislead
Knowledge Issue: How do we know when we have a moral obligation to act?
Real-life situation: The painting ¡§On Strike¡¨ by Hubert von Herkomer
Knowledge issue: What role does language play in the accumulation of
knowledge in the visual arts?
Real-life situation: An article about robot warrior technology and the future of
warfare
Knowledge Issue: How can we distinguish between innovation and progress?
Real life situation: Scientific study, which shows that 1970s predictions about
the environment were wrong
Knowledge Issue: Must all good explanations make successful predictions?
Knowledge issue: How can we know when we have a good scientific explanation?
Knowledge Issue: To what extent is a scientific explanation more convincing
than other types of explanation?
Real life situation: Historian David Irving‟s views on
the Holocaust
Knowledge Issue: How can we know which interpretation of an event in history
to accept?
Knowledge Issue: How can we draw a clear line between fact and interpretation
in history?
Knowledge Issue: What makes an event historically significant?
Real life situation: Scientists present new findings in their search for the
Higgs boson.
Knowledge Issue: How much evidence do scientists need before they can accept
a theory?
Knowledge Issue: How can we be sure that evidence gained through the use of
technology is genuine?
Knowledge Issue: What is the scope of the scientific method in attempting to
establish truths?
Real life situation: The Anders Breivik mass murder
case in
Knowledge issue: To what extent should emotion play a role in the evaluation
of knowledge claims?
Knowledge issue: To what extent is emotion a better guide to what is ethical
than reason?
Knowledge Issue: Are there any absolute moral truths?
Real life situation: Widespread use of publicity in English in my Spanish
speaking country
Knowledge Issue: To what extent does use of a non-native language affect
attitudes to knowledge?
Knowledge issue: To what extent does the language we use affect our
perception of the world?
Real life situation: Marc Quinn‟s "Self", a
frozen sculpture of the artist‟s head made from his
own blood.
Knowledge issue: Are there limits to what is acceptable in art?
Real life situation: Messages taken to outer space in the form of diagrams
Knowledge Issue: To what extent are diagrams less culturally dependent than
language?
Real life situation: A move to make history a compulsory school subject up to age
16
Knowledge Issue: To what extent should academic disciplines be ranked
according to their usefulness?
Real life situation: The use of a personality test to assess students in the
class
Knowledge Issue: What are the strengths and limitations of quantification in
the human sciences?
Real life situation: The connection between being a smoker and one¡¥s parents
being smokers
Knowledge Issue: How does a scientific explanation distinguish between
correlation and causation?
Real life situation: The cartoons of Prophet Muhammed
published in
Knowledge Issue: How can we know if and when artistic freedom of expression
should be limited?
Real life situation: The end of the Cold War as depicted in the song 'Winds of
Change.'
Knowledge Issue: In what ways do the arts influence
people's perspectives of current events?
Real life situation: Collecting data in physics class but correcting it to match
the 'proven' theory
Knowledge Issue: To what extent is faith a reliable way of knowing?