ocr a level rs essay plans

The OCR religious studies syllabus (course code H573) is assessed via 3 exam papers:

• Philosophy of religion
• Religion and ethics
• Developments in religious thought

Each of these exam papers is 2 hours long and is worth 120 marks (33.3% of the overall grade). The format of each exam paper is the same: You will have a choice of 4 essay questions and must choose 3 of these to answer.

Philosophy of Religion

• Theory of Forms
• Analogy of the cave
• The four causes
• The prime mover
• Plato vs. Aristotle on the soul
• Substance dualism
• Materialism
• Omnipotence
• Everlasting
• Omnibenevolence
• Teleological arguments
• Cosmological arguments
• Ontological arguments
• The logical problem of evil
• The evidential problem of evil
• St. Augustine: Free will and the Fall
• Hick: Soul-making
• William James: Features of religious experience
• Union with a greater power
• Psychological explanations
• Physiological explanations
• The apophatic way (via negativa)
• The cataphatic way (via positiva)
• The symbolic way
• Logical positivism and verificationism
• Falsification
• Wittgenstein: Form of life

Religion and Ethics

• Four tiers of law
• The precepts
• The four working principles
• The six propositions
• Duty and good will
• The categorical imperative
• The three postulates
• The hedonic calculus
• Act and rule utilitarianism
• Sanctity of life vs. quality of life
• Voluntary and non-voluntary euthanasia
• Corporate social responsibility
• Whistleblowing
• Globalisation
• Premarital and extramarital sex
• Homosexuality
• Intuitionism
• Conscientia
• Vincible and invincible ignorance
• Structure of personality (id, ego, and superego)
• Psychosexual development

Developments in Religious Thought

For this paper, students pick one topic from the following:

Christianity

• Augustine’s teachings on human nature
• Death and the afterlife
• Knowledge of God’s existence (natural and revealed)
• The person of Jesus
• Sources of moral principles (the Bible, the church, reason)
• Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Christian moral action
• Exclusivism, inclusivism, and pluralism
• Religious pluralism and society
• Gender and society
• Gender and theology
• The challenge of secularism
• Liberation theology and Marx
• Prophecy and revelation (Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad)
• The oneness of God
• Arguments for God’s existence within the Qur’an
• Interpretation of descriptions of God in the Qur’an
• Human destiny and the meaning of life
• Hadith and Sira
• The Shari’a
• Sunni and Shi’a
• Science and philosophy
• Gender equality
• Justice and liberation
• Islam and the state
• Islam in Europe
• Oral and written law
• Covenant in the Torah
• Maimonides’ 13 Principles of Faith
• Suffering and hope
• Haskalah and emancipation
• The state of Israel and the Biblical promised land
• Jewish feminism
• Post-Holocaust theology
• Chagall: Art as resistance
• Taking refuge
• The six realms of existence (Samsara)
• The three marks of existence (impermanence, suffering, and no self)
• The four noble truths
• Mahayana Buddhism
• Madhyamaka and Prajnaparamita
• Zen Buddhism and Pure Land Buddhism
• Buddhism in the West
• Engaged Buddhism and activism
• Buddhism and gender
• Development of Hinduism and different Hindu traditions
• Hindu scriptures and the role of Holy persons
• Brahman and the self
• Samsara and Karma
• Dharma and Adharma
• Living in accordance with Dharma
• Hinduism as a religion
• Hinduism and India
• Hinduism in the West
• Equality and discrimination
• Social reform

Writing A Level Essays

Here are some model A Level essays, written for the new OCR specification.

The essays are all out of 40 marks (16 AO1 and 24 Ao2) and written with A Level notes, using my standard A Level plan (below), in 4o minutes… the amount of time you will have in the final examination.

Obviously enough, these answers represent one possible approach and are only intended to give students an idea of what a reasonable answer might look like.  There are other approaches that would be equally good or better. 

“Fail to plan and you are planning to fail…”

Although the exams won’t allow for a lot of planning time, spending significant time planning through the course is essential because it trains your mind, helping you to absorb and understand what a good essay feels like.  I always say that in a weekly essay it is much better to spend over an hour planning and then limit writing to 40 minutes than to write for 2 hours without a plan!  An unplanned essay, however detailed, is pretty useless because the only thing you have done is to write out your notes in a different way.

Planning an essay forces you to analyse, assess and evaluate the content of the topic, develop and then defend an opinion on it.  This takes you well beyond where you can get in class and is one of the only opportunities you have to give your brain a real work-out. 

I always recommend that students use an assertive approach in A Level essays, putting a THESIS up front (after a relatively short exposition of the question and topic at hand ) using body paragraphs to support their thesis with clear reasons – including evaluated and rejected counter-claims – thus forming a strong and persuasive argument and earning the 60% of the marks that depend on this.

I think that the traditional A01 led approach – where students explain the topic, point by point, evaluating only if they remember at the end of each paragraph and leaving the argument to the conclusion – is a disaster for the new A Level because it will probably cap students around the bottom B level, maybe 28 out of 40.

Students who have not committed their line of argument to paper in paragraph 1 will often not decide what they are arguing until the conclusion, and will therefore fail to argue anything through the body of the essay.

Also, leaving 60% of the marks to the last paragraph when students will be under severe time-pressure and stress, seems unwise.

The upshot of the traditional essay-plan is that if students do not finish they could end up getting 14/40 for a detailed and fluent essay which contains no argument, getting an E rather than an A.  This is a very big price to pay for poor time-management in a 2 year linear exam! . Religious Studies Practice Questions

What would a good essay look like then?

Introduction: What is the question asking?  Identify / briefly explain the topic, identify important issues and key words.  Finish with a THESIS, a clear statement of what your argument (answer) will be, ideally not using the personal pronoun “I” or the hackneyed “this essay will argue…”

Paragraph 1: Your first / strongest reason in support of your argument. State it in your first sentence (POINT), then explain it using plenty of examples and references to scholars (EVIDENCE) and finally relate it back to the Thesis, showing how it relates to your ARGUMENT and LINKS to your reasoning.

Paragraph 2: Your second / next strongest reason in support of your argument. State it in your first sentence (POINT), then explain it using plenty of examples and references to scholars (EVIDENCE) and finally relate it back to the Thesis, showing how it relates to your ARGUMENT and LINKS to your reasoning.

Paragraph 3: Another reason in support of your argument. State it in your first sentence (POINT), then explain it using plenty of examples and references to scholars (EVIDENCE) and finally relate it back to the Thesis, showing how it relates to your ARGUMENT and LINKS to your reasoning.

COUNTERCLAIM: Who would disagree with your argument?  Why? Explain their objection using examples and references to scholars etc. EVALUATE their objection, concluding that you do not accept it because… LINK back to your Thesis.

COUNTERCLAIM 2: Who else would disagree with your argument?  Why? Explain their objection using examples and references to scholars etc. EVALUATE their objection, concluding that you do not accept it because… LINK back to your Thesis.

Conclusion: Repeat your Thesis and list your main points in support.  Acknowledge any limitations or weaknesses that your argument has and/or what might force you to change this conclusion.

USING PARAGRAPHS

Note how each paragraph shares a similar STRUCTURE – it contains a POINT, some EXPLANATION, EVIDENCE and a LINK to the argument.  Think PEEL.

A paragraph is not just aesthetic and does not just break-up a block of text making it look better, it is a unit of your argument which helps to make sense of it.  Think of each paragraph as a separate slide in a PowerPoint or a separate bullet-point in a plan.  A paragraph must be self-contained and make sense in its own terms as well as fitting neatly into your essay structure.

TIP: It is worth practicing writing paragraphs separately, drafting and re-drafting them to improve your clarity and style. This can be a really good way of making notes, one which gets you evaluating and thinking about how you would use information to argue a case.

Share this:

• Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
• Subscribe Subscribed
• Copy shortlink
• Report this content
• View post in Reader
• Manage subscriptions
• Collapse this bar

A Level Philosophy & Religious Studies

OCR Religious Studies Re vision Notes

Philosophy of religion, religious ethics, christianity, list of possible exam questions, essay structure.

• International
• Schools directory
• Resources Jobs Schools directory News Search

OCR A Level RS- Meta-ethics essay plans

Subject: Philosophy and ethics

Age range: 16+

Resource type: Assessment and revision

Last updated

7 February 2020

• Share through email
• Share through twitter
• Share through linkedin
• Share through facebook
• Share through pinterest

Covering ALL potential questions for Meta-ethics!

Tes paid licence How can I reuse this?

Your rating is required to reflect your happiness.

It's good to leave some feedback.

Something went wrong, please try again later.

Empty reply does not make any sense for the end user

Report this resource to let us know if it violates our terms and conditions. Our customer service team will review your report and will be in touch.

Not quite what you were looking for? Search by keyword to find the right resource: