A2 Edexcel Government and Politics. Unit 3 Political Ideologies 09/06/14

Really scared about this exam - what kind of questions do you think could come up?

Anything! Apparently you can revise just 3/4 ideologies though? Obviously it's riskier because you limit yourself but might be worth it if you don't have time to learn everything.

I'm thinking about just revising liberalism, anarchism and conservatism and I am really worried about the type of 45 mark questions they may ask - esp on conservatism where there are a lot of conservative strands - such as the Traditional conservatives - the one nation tories, the christian democrats and the authoritatian conservatives, and then there is the new right. What type of 45 mark questions do you think they may ask?

Yeah I hate conservatism it's def my worst one. I get so confused with neoliberalism and all the strands etc. Apparently you don't really need to know about authoritarian and christian conservatism, and I've never included them in my essays. I wish I could drop conservatism but they often include it in unit 4 in the nationalism and multiculturalism questions I have no idea , my teacher never gives predictions, I'm going to have a look through all the past papers today and see what's come up recently. How have you been structuring your essays?

Usually I do an intro where I mention my judgement and summarise the main arguments I will be talking about
then when I am writing my arguments in each paragraph I try to evaluate and link back to the question
and I try to use connectives and link diff ideologies to each other for synopticity

yeah I just never know how to structure my argument, whether i should talk about the a key theme in one paragraph and then in the next paragraph say how the different strands of the ideology contradict the core theme?

I think you briefly mention the theme and how the strands of an ideology contradict a theme. So for example.
Has modern liberalism departed from conventional liberal beliefs?
Modern and Classical liberals hold differing views on freedom. While modern liberals ascribe to the idea of positive freedom (freedom to 'be'), classical liberals believe in negative freedom (freedom from external constraints). This difference in opinion shows that modern liberalism has departed from the original principles of liberalism. Modern liberal belief in positive freedom has led the strand to also believe in a more positive view of human nature, where human nature is not only seen as being about the freedom of the individual, but also about the idea that individuals are not merely self seeking, but altruistic. Modern liberals believe humans hold sympathy and concern for each other, unlike classical liberals, who believe in a more negative view of human nature, because of their beliefs in negative freedom.

Ohh ok! Yeah that makes a lot of sense, think I just need to try and do as many practice essays as possible. Thanks for your help! How is your revision going?

Any guesses on what the essays could be based on and what 2 Liberalism SAQs may be?