The Student Room Group

OCR Philosophy and Ethics Study Group (AS & A2)

Hi everyone :hello:

This is an open thread for anybody taking A Level Philosophy. Feel free to exchange notes/essays, ask for exam advice, clear up any confusion and chat about the subject in general.

Here are the provisional exam dates:

AS:
Philosophy of Religion - Thursday 14th May
Religious Ethics - Tuesday 19th May

A2:
Philosophy of Religion - Wednesday 10th June
Religious Ethics - Wednesday 17th June

(NOW CONFIRMED DATES)


Specifications
The full specification can be found here.
Philosophy specification can be found here.
Ethics equivalent and revision source is here.


Recommended Study sites:

YouTube (especially 1, 2 and 3)
RS Revision
Philosophical Investigations (new site for Philosophy and Ethics)
Project Gutenberg (for finding quotes)
Stanford Philosophy
IEP


Books:

OCR Student Book (AS & A2)
P&E Through Diagrams (1)
AS OCR Workbook (Philosophy, Ethics)
A2 OCR Workbook (Philosophy, Ethics)
AS/A2 Religious Ethics textbook (1)
AS/A2 Philosophy of Religion textbook (1)
Understanding Philosophy of Religion for AS & A2 (1)
Understanding Religious Ethics for AS & A2 (1)

*Remember you don't need to buy these at all, just head to the library.
** Or you can buy used copies from either Amazon or eBay at fair prices.


Other Study Resources:

Text to Mind Map
Quizlet
Memorangapp


ENJOY!
(edited 9 years ago)

Scroll to see replies

Lovely post! I've just popped it in Religious Studies and Philosophy for you! :smile:
Original post by Iggy Azalea
Hi everyone :hello:

This is an open thread for anybody taking A Level Philosophy. Feel free to exchange notes/essays, ask for exam advice, clear up any confusion and chat about the subject in general.

Here are the provisional exam dates:

AS:
Philosophy of Religion - Thursday 14th May
Religious Ethics - Tuesday 19th May

A2:
Philosophy of Religion - Wednesday 10th June
Religious Ethics - Wednesday 17th June

(subject to change)


Specifications
The full specification can be found here.
Philosophy specification can be found here.
Ethics equivalent and revision source is here.


Recommended Study sites:

YouTube (especially 1, 2 and 3)
RS Revision
Philosophical Investigations (new site for Philosophy and Ethics)
Project Gutenberg (for finding quotes)
Stanford Philosophy
IEP


Books:

OCR Student Book (AS & A2)
P&E Through Diagrams (1)
AS OCR Workbook (Philosophy, Ethics)
A2 OCR Workbook (Philosophy, Ethics)
AS/A2 Religious Ethics textbook (1)
AS/A2 Philosophy of Religion textbook (1)
Understanding Philosophy of Religion for AS & A2 (1)
Understanding Religious Ethics for AS & A2 (1)

*Remember you don't need to buy these at all, just head to the library.
** Or you can buy used copies from either Amazon or eBay at fair prices.


Other Study Resources:

Text to Mind Map
Quizlet
Memorangapp


ENJOY!


If you need any advice, feel free to reply. I've just completing this. After being predicted a C for my A-level, I got a B (it was my hated subject).

Have some fabulous resourcing and revision aids you could use too :smile:
Original post by Iggy Azalea
Hi everyone :hello:

This is an open thread for anybody taking A Level Philosophy. Feel free to exchange notes/essays, ask for exam advice, clear up any confusion and chat about the subject in general.

Here are the provisional exam dates:

AS:
Philosophy of Religion - Thursday 14th May
Religious Ethics - Tuesday 19th May

A2:
Philosophy of Religion - Wednesday 10th June
Religious Ethics - Wednesday 17th June

(subject to change)


Specifications
The full specification can be found here.
Philosophy specification can be found here.
Ethics equivalent and revision source is here.


Recommended Study sites:

YouTube (especially 1, 2 and 3)
RS Revision
Philosophical Investigations (new site for Philosophy and Ethics)
Project Gutenberg (for finding quotes)
Stanford Philosophy
IEP


Books:

OCR Student Book (AS & A2)
P&E Through Diagrams (1)
AS OCR Workbook (Philosophy, Ethics)
A2 OCR Workbook (Philosophy, Ethics)
AS/A2 Religious Ethics textbook (1)
AS/A2 Philosophy of Religion textbook (1)
Understanding Philosophy of Religion for AS & A2 (1)
Understanding Religious Ethics for AS & A2 (1)

*Remember you don't need to buy these at all, just head to the library.
** Or you can buy used copies from either Amazon or eBay at fair prices.


Other Study Resources:

Text to Mind Map
Quizlet
Memorangapp


ENJOY!


I like you, k.
Reply 4
Iggy this is fabulous. I shall certainly be watching this thread. How did you do by the way?

Original post by Iggy Azalea
x
Original post by serebro
Iggy this is fabulous. I shall certainly be watching this thread. How did you do by the way?


A overall. 82 UMS in Ethics. 100 UMS in Philosophy. What about you?
Original post by The Empire Odyssey
If you need any advice, feel free to reply. I've just completing this. After being predicted a C for my A-level, I got a B (it was my hated subject).

Have some fabulous resourcing and revision aids you could use too :smile:


Could you just explain what it is you liked and didn't like? And what the course is generally like?
Reply 7
Original post by Iggy Azalea
A overall. 82 UMS in Ethics. 100 UMS in Philosophy. What about you?


Wow that's amazing! I barely got an A. I'm hoping to retake my Ethics exam since it didn't go that well.
Original post by JayJay-C19
Could you just explain what it is you liked and didn't like? And what the course is generally like?


I found SOME of the topics interesting, so I liked that in that respect. I liked how a lot of the topics could be linked with a lot of different ones. So Resurrection topic could be linked with Miracles and the Attributes (colloquially, powers) of God, for instance. At AS I also didn't like how it was a 3 hour exam. That was awful.

What I disliked was how much things we had to cover and learn over a certain amount of period. It was by far my most heaviest-content (having done AS History and A2 English Lit and A2 English Lang, respectively). Half the stuff you learn isn't needed for the exam which I found annoying. I also found at A2 we had to learn more quotes as it's part of the AO. Think it's a bit unnecessary.

For me personally, I hated the course. Was by far my hardest subject (despite getting a B) but I really did hate it so much. I thought Ethics A2 was so boring. I think generically, it depends on how the course it taught. I had fun discussions with teachers and because my class; there was about 13/4 of us and the 10 of us were all close friends anyway so we'd have a lot of serious banter about the topics and arguments and debates that we'd just forget as soon as we left the room. Especially in Philo, every single time (90%) of all lessons I left either absolutely intellectually drained or completely confused about the world and my (half-hearted) faith. It's very heavy course and some of the things we learned, if not all the things we learned you'd have to go over about 10 times before it made any sense. That was the majority of the group anyway and not just me as in Philo we spent a lot of lessons going over the previous lesson as we didn't get it or we had to continue because we were stuck and we just sometimes didn't do the work she asked cause we just didn't understand so she had to figure out a way to help us. So sometimes we would leave 10-15 mins before the lesson ended cause we weren't getting it. So for me, the most challenging. I was contemplating on applying for English and Philosophy but I just don't think I could hack it at uni!
Original post by The Empire Odyssey
I found SOME of the topics interesting, so I liked that in that respect. I liked how a lot of the topics could be linked with a lot of different ones. So Resurrection topic could be linked with Miracles and the Attributes (colloquially, powers) of God, for instance. At AS I also didn't like how it was a 3 hour exam. That was awful.

What I disliked was how much things we had to cover and learn over a certain amount of period. It was by far my most heaviest-content (having done AS History and A2 English Lit and A2 English Lang, respectively). Half the stuff you learn isn't needed for the exam which I found annoying. I also found at A2 we had to learn more quotes as it's part of the AO. Think it's a bit unnecessary.

For me personally, I hated the course. Was by far my hardest subject (despite getting a B) but I really did hate it so much. I thought Ethics A2 was so boring. I think generically, it depends on how the course it taught. I had fun discussions with teachers and because my class; there was about 13/4 of us and the 10 of us were all close friends anyway so we'd have a lot of serious banter about the topics and arguments and debates that we'd just forget as soon as we left the room. Especially in Philo, every single time (90%) of all lessons I left either absolutely intellectually drained or completely confused about the world and my (half-hearted) faith. It's very heavy course and some of the things we learned, if not all the things we learned you'd have to go over about 10 times before it made any sense. That was the majority of the group anyway and not just me as in Philo we spent a lot of lessons going over the previous lesson as we didn't get it or we had to continue because we were stuck and we just sometimes didn't do the work she asked cause we just didn't understand so she had to figure out a way to help us. So sometimes we would leave 10-15 mins before the lesson ended cause we weren't getting it. So for me, the most challenging. I was contemplating on applying for English and Philosophy but I just don't think I could hack it at uni!


I so agree with you on this. The subject is surprisingly content heavy. All of my friends that take History and Biology find RS to be the most time-consuming.

What is also important to note is that nobody has a grounding of Philosophy and Ethics when they start the course. So you essentially go through an intensive run through of all the terms and theories. You get quite a bit of brain-ache from time to time.

What really annoys me is the exams themselves. You have to write like hell. I did 18 pages in that painful AS 3 hour-long exam. And you have to be a really good essay writer in my opinion.

Thankfully, I have some pretty good teachers which made it easier to cope with. But even then you do have to do a lot of extra reading outside of lessons, we even have to cover a whole topic each year on our own.

I do think the topics are really interesting though. And once you've learnt something, you start seeing it everywhere. Even watching TV, I could label each character to the ethical theory they follow. Plus things like Plato's Cave, as well as the God's arguments for existence take a long time to sink in. But it's cool when you realised you've grasped it.
Original post by The Empire Odyssey
I found SOME of the topics interesting, so I liked that in that respect. I liked how a lot of the topics could be linked with a lot of different ones. So Resurrection topic could be linked with Miracles and the Attributes (colloquially, powers) of God, for instance. At AS I also didn't like how it was a 3 hour exam. That was awful.

What I disliked was how much things we had to cover and learn over a certain amount of period. It was by far my most heaviest-content (having done AS History and A2 English Lit and A2 English Lang, respectively). Half the stuff you learn isn't needed for the exam which I found annoying. I also found at A2 we had to learn more quotes as it's part of the AO. Think it's a bit unnecessary.

For me personally, I hated the course. Was by far my hardest subject (despite getting a B) but I really did hate it so much. I thought Ethics A2 was so boring. I think generically, it depends on how the course it taught. I had fun discussions with teachers and because my class; there was about 13/4 of us and the 10 of us were all close friends anyway so we'd have a lot of serious banter about the topics and arguments and debates that we'd just forget as soon as we left the room. Especially in Philo, every single time (90%) of all lessons I left either absolutely intellectually drained or completely confused about the world and my (half-hearted) faith. It's very heavy course and some of the things we learned, if not all the things we learned you'd have to go over about 10 times before it made any sense. That was the majority of the group anyway and not just me as in Philo we spent a lot of lessons going over the previous lesson as we didn't get it or we had to continue because we were stuck and we just sometimes didn't do the work she asked cause we just didn't understand so she had to figure out a way to help us. So sometimes we would leave 10-15 mins before the lesson ended cause we weren't getting it. So for me, the most challenging. I was contemplating on applying for English and Philosophy but I just don't think I could hack it at uni!


Your experiences are very similar to a lot of my classmates'. We started with 15 in Year 11 (my school has a 3-year sixth form) and we're now four heading into Year 13. Poor-quality teaching doesn't help much either :tongue:
Good thread, btw, Iggy.

For anyone who's starting AS this year (or continuing it if you have a three-year sixth form), I have a collection of essays, sets of notes and presentations - the latter of which are extremely extensive - on nearly all the topics in both Philosophy and Ethics. The ones to which I currently have home access are attached below. All 10/10 or 25/25. I also got 100 UMS in both exams, so I suppose I can give advice on revision and essay-writing techniques . . . ?
Reply 12
Original post by The Empire Odyssey
If you need any advice, feel free to reply. I've just completing this. After being predicted a C for my A-level, I got a B (it was my hated subject).

Have some fabulous resourcing and revision aids you could use too :smile:


Could i have your resources and revision aid pleaase?! x
Original post by shahn_
Could i have your resources and revision aid pleaase?! x


This thread was back in 2014. I no longer have them, sorry!
If anyone has any idea of what questions they think might come up for the A2 Philosophy pf Religion paper this year (June2015), please share!!! :smile:
I think there might be one on the verification principle, as I don't think there's been one yet!
I'm really worried for the ethics paper, my teacher isn't great and while I have good UMS from last year, I really want an A* :\
Original post by Naomi12
I think there might be one on the verification principle, as I don't think there's been one yet!
I'm really worried for the ethics paper, my teacher isn't great and while I have good UMS from last year, I really want an A* :\


My teachers where terrible. I taught my self the entire AS syllabus in two mouths and got high A's. I'm going the same for A2 now.
Hi, I was wondering if any of you had tips for year 12s? I'm doing the AS this year and Im fine with the content but I can't do part Bs, so any of you have specific techniques that you remember from last year?
Original post by BrendhaUchiha
Hi, I was wondering if any of you had tips for year 12s? I'm doing the AS this year and Im fine with the content but I can't do part Bs, so any of you have specific techniques that you remember from last year?

I'm having the same problem! I understand the content but I can't seem to get the top grades with the essay writing!! would anyone be willing to have a look at an essay or two and suggest improvements if I posted it on here?
Original post by FlowaPowa
I'm having the same problem! I understand the content but I can't seem to get the top grades with the essay writing!! would anyone be willing to have a look at an essay or two and suggest improvements if I posted it on here?


I will