A-level Religious Studies?

What do Universities think of Religious Studies?

If you have done it:
Is it hard? easy?
Is the content easy to understand and is there a lot of it?

Reply 1

Roxas13

9

I'm going to take it and from what I've heard it's respected and isn't viewed as a soft subject. Are you taking it as your fourth a-level?

Reply 2

iloveconverse

OP

1

Original post by Roxas13

I'm going to take it and from what I've heard it's respected and isn't viewed as a soft subject. Are you taking it as your fourth a-level?

No, but if it gets too hard I may drop it. I have a great interest in it though...

What subjects are you taking and are you taking it as your fourth subject? (:

Reply 3

Roxas13

9

Original post by iloveconverse

No, but if it gets too hard I may drop it. I have a great interest in it though...

What subjects are you taking and are you taking it as your fourth subject? (:

I'm taking Biology, Chemistry, Psychology and Religous Studies. I'm trying to pick was a-levels are suitable for medicine. I'm going to see if I can keep all four but if it gets too hard I'll either drop psychology or Religous Studies. What course are you interested in doing at university?

Reply 4

hayheyley

2

I'm now studying A2 Religious Studies (Philosophy & Ethics) and, at least for some subjects, it is fine for top universities including Oxbridge. You do need to understand the theories but as long as you have a good textbook/teacher then it shouldn't be a problem. You will need to be able to compare and evaluate theories for the exam. There's quite a lot to remember but it is an interesting subject and I'm enjoying it :smile:

Reply 5

iloveconverse

OP

1

Original post by Roxas13

I'm taking Biology, Chemistry, Psychology and Religous Studies. I'm trying to pick was a-levels are suitable for medicine. I'm going to see if I can keep all four but if it gets too hard I'll either drop psychology or Religous Studies. What course are you interested in doing at university?

Finance and accounting/ Maths related degrees. I was also thinking about psychology because apparently it's easier than RS, but I heard that Universities don't like it too much. I might find it boring...well boring than RS

Reply 6

iloveconverse

OP

1

Original post by hayheyley

I'm now studying A2 Religious Studies (Philosophy & Ethics) and, at least for some subjects, it is fine for top universities including Oxbridge. You do need to understand the theories but as long as you have a good textbook/teacher then it shouldn't be a problem. You will need to be able to compare and evaluate theories for the exam. There's quite a lot to remember but it is an interesting subject and I'm enjoying it :smile:

The RS teachers at my school actually suck (unless I get into the college im applying to) so do you think I have a chance of achieving an A if I work really hard with the use of the textbook.

Can I ask what subjects your doing and if you found RS harder than them? (:
Also, what did you get for AS RS?

Reply 7

GirlGerms.

8

I'm taking Religious Studies alongside English Literature, History and Theatre Studies. I kept all on to A Level and loved the course so much I decided to take Theology at uni with English :smile:

Reply 8

hayheyley

2

Original post by iloveconverse

The RS teachers at my school actually suck (unless I get into the college im applying to) so do you think I have a chance of achieving an A if I work really hard with the use of the textbook.

Can I ask what subjects your doing and if you found RS harder than them? (:
Also, what did you get for AS RS?

Of course you could get an A, I meant you might need either a good teacher or a good textbook to help you really understand the theories as that IS necessary for an A. I'm doing OCR and I find the Philosophy & Ethics textbook by Ina Taylor (and others) brilliant as it's so simple and puts things really clearly.

I'm also studying Psychology and Maths and took Spanish to AS (plus a month of A2 :tongue:

). Personally I found Maths and Spanish harder because there seemed to be a greater workload whereas RS & Psy weren't so bad, but obviously everyone has different strengths. I got an A at AS.

Edit: I should probably clarify that the workload may well be down to my teachers so you might find it different at your school/college :smile:

(edited 13 years ago)

Reply 9

Mr Inquisitive

16

I take English Literature, History, Mathematics, Economics, and Politics. I hated RS at GCSE, but at A-Level it sounds excellent - I possibly should have taken it! It's definitely not viewed as a soft subject and adds a good analytical subject to your application.

Also, if you like analysing ethical questions and have a good ability to make judgements with strong arguments for your views, it wont be too hard for you.

i.e. "How would you define time?" or "Discuss the view that 'God is dead'".

(edited 13 years ago)

Reply 10

sunlightxstarbright

11

I do Religious Studies but the Contemporary Society and Art courses rather than Philosophy and Ethics. With my course I had to remember a lot of statistics and there were quite a few essays. The art part of the course is very dull but you just need to get through it as the contemp. society can be interesting.

Reply 11

iloveconverse

OP

1

Original post by hayheyley

Of course you could get an A, I meant you might need either a good teacher or a good textbook to help you really understand the theories as that IS necessary for an A. I'm doing OCR and I find the Philosophy & Ethics textbook by Ina Taylor (and others) brilliant as it's so simple and puts things really clearly.

I'm also studying Psychology and Maths and took Spanish to AS (plus a month of A2 :tongue:

). Personally I found Maths and Spanish harder because there seemed to be a greater workload whereas RS & Psy weren't so bad, but obviously everyone has different strengths. I got an A at AS.

Edit: I should probably clarify that the workload may well be down to my teachers so you might find it different at your school/college :smile:

Thankyou -I love RS but I'm considering Psychology as the % of As is much higher than in RS at my school. Is this the case at your college/sixth form?

Also, if you had to choose between Psychology and RS, which one would you choose. Which one is generally harder do you think?

Thankyou :biggrin:

Reply 12

jelly1000

21

I do RS, personally found the AS bit very easy- got an A without much work. A2 is a step up though- there are a lot more people you have to remember and a lot more theories to remember as well.

Reply 13

hayheyley

2

Original post by iloveconverse

Thankyou -I love RS but I'm considering Psychology as the % of As is much higher than in RS at my school. Is this the case at your college/sixth form?

Also, if you had to choose between Psychology and RS, which one would you choose. Which one is generally harder do you think?

Thankyou :biggrin:

I'm really not sure about the % of As at my school but it wouldn't surprise me if it's similar to yours, as a fair few in my RS class only took it because they thought it would be an easy subject. I think it would be silly to choose a subject based on the proportion of As as it is largely down to the individual students' ability and willingness to work.

I would choose Psychology but I am rather biased as I'm applying to study it at uni. Again, I don't think you should let my preference help you decide as it is subjective and they're your A levels so your decision! :tongue:

At AS, as I mentioned in a previous post, I found them roughly the same difficulty-wise but I am finding Psychology more challenging this year. However this is partly due to the A2 Psy exams being completely different to the AS ones and it's not a very accurate judgement as I have done very little exam practice this year for RS as both my exams will be in June.

I would honestly choose whichever you think you would enjoy the most, unless one would be clearly more helpful for the subject you're intending to study at university and/or the career you'd like to pursue.

Reply 14

robbo3045

17

You might as well take A Level Fairy Studies. I can't believe we still allow Religious Education to go ahead.

Reply 15

un-besito

11

I like it, it's the subect that I do best in but not my favourite by any means. The content isn't too difficult to understand, and (depending on your exam board) you choose to answer on 2 topics in the exam, so you can focus less on those you find difficult - I found the cosmological argument a bit annoying and wasn't keen on psychology of religion, so I did atheism and postmodernism and the other one (forgotten what it was) haha.
That's at AS, they say that the topics are much more interesting at A2 (i.e. women in Islam) but I personally don't really feel like I've learnt very much this year, but that's probably related to the style in which it's taught at my school. I got a high A at AS with solid revision for about a week...choose the topics you are good atand revise them to death so that you will be able to answer whatever question comes up for that topic :smile:

(We were told to revise 3 just in case, but idk how many people did that.)

Reply 16

Peachz

17

I do it. It is a good subject in my opinion and is highly thought of by Universities, I think its in the top tier of Cambridge's subject thing. The stuff you do is really thought provoking. Even if you're atheist its still interesting as we do a module on Atheism. Provided you do more philosophy based modules then it is more enjoyable. You can get stuck doing 'New Testament' or 'Old Testament' which I imagine are quite boring unless you're a theist.

Reply 17

Etoiliege

9

I'm taking A2 Religious Studies, A2 Law, A2 English Literature and AS Critical Thinking. I'm planning to take Law at Cardiff University and given how competitive Law is, I still got offers from all 5 of my choices, so I don't think it's seen as a soft subject.

I took up RS about 6 weeks late because I discovered I couldn't speak French as well as I'd thought. I'm studying Philosophy of Religion and Buddhism, my AS Philosophy and the Philosophy of Religion did overlap a bit but I found it helpful rather than boring.

I think it's a really interesting course though heavily essay-based, we tend to write a consolidation essay every 2-3 weeks - although that could be because my college is quite hot on giving students homework. I didn't take RS at GCSE (only the standard Short-Course) but that wasn't a problem.

I'd definitely recommend it but as the poster above me said, it's really down to you. My best friend wants to take Psychology at UcLan and she loves her course to bits as well. I think both subjects are about equal, they involve memorising an awful lot of details/criticisms but RS involves more abstract theory. Considering if you're more of a philosophical or logical thinker may help you decide which you're more suited to.

Just try and read a little bit around both subjects and get a feel for them. If you find out what modules you could be doing at your college then maybe some of us on this thread could recommend some texts.. (:

Reply 18

iloveconverse

OP

1

Original post by Etoiliege

I'm taking A2 Religious Studies, A2 Law, A2 English Literature and AS Critical Thinking. I'm planning to take Law at Cardiff University and given how competitive Law is, I still got offers from all 5 of my choices, so I don't think it's seen as a soft subject.

I took up RS about 6 weeks late because I discovered I couldn't speak French as well as I'd thought. I'm studying Philosophy of Religion and Buddhism, my AS Philosophy and the Philosophy of Religion did overlap a bit but I found it helpful rather than boring.

I think it's a really interesting course though heavily essay-based, we tend to write a consolidation essay every 2-3 weeks - although that could be because my college is quite hot on giving students homework. I didn't take RS at GCSE (only the standard Short-Course) but that wasn't a problem.

I'd definitely recommend it but as the poster above me said, it's really down to you. My best friend wants to take Psychology at UcLan and she loves her course to bits as well. I think both subjects are about equal, they involve memorising an awful lot of details/criticisms but RS involves more abstract theory. Considering if you're more of a philosophical or logical thinker may help you decide which you're more suited to.

Just try and read a little bit around both subjects and get a feel for them. If you find out what modules you could be doing at your college then maybe some of us on this thread could recommend some texts.. (:

Thanks, this was a really helpful answer :biggrin:

My essay writing skills aren't brilliant but is it true that they'll teach us how to write essays during the course?

Reply 19

Lintu93

18

Depends which exam board you do. I'm doing Edexcel and I think it's fascinating. It's also quite easy to do well in (compared to the other subjects I'm doing - maths and chemistry). But that might just be the exam board though.

A-level Religious Studies?

Quick Reply

Related discussions

Latest

Trending

Trending

Articles for you