Back to Singapore Knowledge & Inquiry
Singapore · SEABQ&A
Knowledge & InquiryQ&A by dot point
A short Q&A bank for every Singapore Knowledge & Inquiry syllabus dot point. Each question and answer is drawn directly from our worked dot-point page, so you can scan key concepts before opening the long-form answer.
Ethics, Values and Knowledge
- Assess whether there can be moral knowledge, contrasting cognitivism and non-cognitivism and weighing intuition, reasoning and disagreement as routes to or against it6Q&A pairs
- Contrast moral realism with anti-realist positions including error theory, emotivism and constructivism, and assess the arguments from queerness and moral experience7Q&A pairs
- Distinguish descriptive, normative and metaethical relativism and assess the argument from cultural diversity and the objections to relativism6Q&A pairs
- Explain how moral reasoning proceeds through principles, consequences and cases, and assess methods such as reflective equilibrium and thought experiments for resolving moral disagreement5Q&A pairs
- Explain the fact-value distinction and Hume's is-ought gap, and assess the naturalistic fallacy and challenges to a sharp separation5Q&A pairs
Knowledge in the Humanities and Social Sciences
- Examine how history identifies causes and constructs narratives, and assess whether selection, perspective and the absence of laws undermine historical objectivity5Q&A pairs
- Contrast naturalist explanation with interpretive understanding in the human sciences and assess whether the study of human action requires a distinctive method4Q&A pairs
- Explain the hermeneutic circle and the problem of interpretation, and assess how interpretive disciplines can constrain readings and avoid vicious circularity5Q&A pairs
- Assess the prospects for objectivity in the humanities and social sciences, distinguishing senses of objectivity and weighing standpoint and value-freedom7Q&A pairs
- Analyse where values enter social inquiry, distinguishing epistemic from non-epistemic values and assessing the threat of bias to social-scientific knowledge4Q&A pairs
Knowledge in the Sciences
- Explain Kuhn's account of paradigms, normal and revolutionary science, and incommensurability, and assess what it implies for scientific objectivity and progress5Q&A pairs
- Explain the theory-ladenness of observation and the role of models and idealisation in science, and assess their implications for objectivity4Q&A pairs
- Explain Popper's falsificationism as a solution to the demarcation problem and assess its strengths and weaknesses, including the Duhem-Quine challenge5Q&A pairs
- Contrast scientific realism with instrumentalism and anti-realism, and assess the no-miracles argument and the pessimistic meta-induction7Q&A pairs
- Explain Hume's problem of induction and the new riddle of induction, and assess the main responses including pragmatic, probabilistic and Popperian replies4Q&A pairs
- Characterise the scientific method, contrasting inductivist and hypothetico-deductive accounts, and assess whether a single method defines science5Q&A pairs
Reasoning and Argument
- Explain deductive validity and soundness, distinguish them from the truth of the premises, and apply the concepts to assess given arguments4Q&A pairs
- Apply a systematic method for evaluating an argument and assessing the reliability, relevance and bias of the sources its premises depend on6Q&A pairs
- Identify and explain common formal and informal fallacies and diagnose them in given arguments without committing the fallacy-fallacy3Q&A pairs
- Identify the conclusion, premises and unstated assumptions of an argument and represent its structure, distinguishing argument from non-argument8Q&A pairs
- Distinguish inductive from deductive reasoning and assess inductive strength across generalisation, analogy and inference to the best explanation6Q&A pairs
- Distinguish necessary from sufficient conditions, relate them to conditional statements, and use them to analyse definitions and detect conditional fallacies5Q&A pairs
The Independent Study and Inquiry
- Explain how to choose and justify a methodology for the Independent Study, matching method to question across conceptual, empirical and mixed approaches and addressing rigour and ethics6Q&A pairs
- Explain how to construct a sustained argument for a thesis in the Independent Study and defend it by anticipating and answering the strongest objections6Q&A pairs
- Explain how to evaluate sources and evidence in the Independent Study, applying criteria of reliability and relevance and guarding against bias and cherry-picking6Q&A pairs
- Explain how to frame a research question for the Independent Study, distinguishing good from poor questions and refining scope, contestability and answerability6Q&A pairs
- Explain how to structure and write the Independent Study dissertation, from introduction and methodology to argument, evaluation and conclusion, with sound referencing and academic integrity4Q&A pairs
The Nature of Knowledge
- Evaluate the role of language in the construction of knowledge, considering linguistic relativity, the public nature of meaning, and the risks of vagueness and conceptual framing5Q&A pairs
- Assess perception as a source of knowledge, contrasting direct realism, indirect realism and idealism, and evaluating the arguments from illusion and theory-ladenness7Q&A pairs
- Distinguish a priori from a posteriori knowledge and analytic from synthetic truths, and evaluate the rationalist and empiricist accounts of the sources of knowledge3Q&A pairs
- Assess testimony as a source of knowledge, contrasting reductionist and anti-reductionist accounts and considering memory as a further source6Q&A pairs
- Explain the Gettier problem as a challenge to the sufficiency of the tripartite analysis and assess the main attempts to repair the definition of knowledge8Q&A pairs
- Explain the three conditions commonly held to be necessary for propositional knowledge - truth, belief and justification - and assess whether each is genuinely required4Q&A pairs