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The AQA Philosophy AS/A2 Revision Thread

I thought us AQA candidates could use a thread where we can discuss exam questions, give exam tips and help each other out when we don't understand something.

I'm currently doing the PHIL 3 units on:
.Ethics
.Philosophy of Religion.

PHIL 4:
.Mill's 'On Liberty'

I've also done the AS units:
PHIL 1:
.Reason and experience
.The origins of God

PHIL 2:
.God and the world
.Tolerance

Past papers for AQA Philosophy can be found here:

http://web.aqa.org.uk/qual/gce/humanities/philosophy_materials.php?id=10&prev=

Grade Boundaries can be found here:

http://web.aqa.org.uk/over/stat_grades_archive.php

Hope this thread will be of some use to people :smile:

Scroll to see replies

Reply 1

Mill

Hi I'm doing

PHIL3
Political Philosophy
Philosophy of Religion

PHIL4
Mill On Liberty

I'm working on notes for all topics that have been a work in progress all year. I'll upload them once they're closer to completion! Mill should be finished over the next couple of weeks.

What do you mainly use as source material for this course? Our teacher hates the textbook and we never use in class, instead we use An Introduction to Political Philosophy by Jonathan Wolff and whatever he prints out for Philosophy of Religion, it's terribly unstructured and really annoying!

Reply 2

sosotalk

Original post by Mill

Our teacher hates the textbook too. He's made booklets for all the topics we're studying as well as powerpoints. I bought a load of the old syllabus textbooks in a border's closing down sale. :smile:

Reply 3

torilou10

So, I'm taking the A Level from home, alongside FT work, through a distance-learning provider. I am STRUGGLING like never before - I am currently covering topics on Meta-ethics; Moral/Anti-Realism and can honestly, hand-on-heart say I have no idea what I am doing. I understand NONE of it. Unfortunately, my tutor has been of zero help - her last offering being, 'of all the subjects I tutor, Philosophy is definitely the hardest' with a link to a PSYCHOLOGY revision guide on Amazon. I am panicking :s-smilie:

I need to tackle my 3rd Assignment but don't know where to start. I've also just covered Political Philosophy topics and also had no clue; I can't even begin to remember what I've covered. This means I am in a constant state of worry - a) because I genuinely understand nothing I've covered and b) because I don't know how, because of a), how I am going to remember or learn anything well enough to even begin to answer the questions in the Summer exams. Can anyone help? Have you been recommended any specific texts? I've got 4 topics left of Meta-ethics and then am on to Mill's Liberty, which I am just dreading. Right now I feel like packing it all in :frown:

Reply 4

Mill

Original post by torilou10

Don't panic.

With a bit of reading, this subject can be quite simple. I made minimal notes but did get to know the arguments quite well by reading and obtained an A at AS level.

First; read the specification so you know exactly what topics you need to cover.

Then; buy yourself this textbook, and a copy of Mill's On Liberty if you haven't already.

I'm afraid I don't know anything about your other topic but I'll upload all my notes from political philosophy closer to the exam. For political phil. I'd also recommend this book. It covers a lot of the stuff in the spec.

Reply 5

roseleanorlaw

Hey guys! I stress so much about this subject because my teacher makes his own notes and we don't have any outside stuff available.. I got 2 Es in my Phil1 and Phil2 exams by using his methods; but when I used Michael Lacewing's stuff I managed to get a B (1 mark off an A, grr!) and unfortunately another E.. but I've given up on Phil2 because no matter how hard I try I just can't get a half decent grade. We appealed to AQA twice, but they downgraded everyone then destroyed the papers when we asked to have them back to review them. Now all I can do is focus everything on Phil3 and Phil4 and hope that I don't fail this because I only get one shot!

In Phil3 I'm doing Ethics and Philosophy of Mind
In Phil4 I'm studing Plato's Republic

I'm hoping to make some half decent notes on this tonight and wondered if anyone else who's doing the same subjects wanted to talk over anything! Also have all the more reason to stress about Phil4 because the bloody exam is on my 18th birthday. hahaha

Reply 6

chocolatechips

(edited 10 years ago)

Reply 7

Smarty93

Phil 1 85/100 UMS 'A'
Phil 2 92/100 UMS 'A'

Phil 3
Hume's enquiry - Im going to make on notes on the whole the Hume book. Disgustingly hard to understand at first but gradually has become easier.

Phil 4
Phil of Religion: Still havent finished learning the content in class. Fairly straightforward though..
Phil of Mind: Really enjoyable subject that should be relativeky easy to score high grades with notes. Going to writeup all the arguments, strengths/weaknesses for each at the middle of may.

Reply 8

hannnaaaaah

I have done
PHIL1: Reason and Experience and Persons. 100/100 UMS
PHIL2: God and the World and Knowledge of the External World. 87/100 UMS

I have yet to do
PHIL3: Moral Philosophy and Philosophy of Mind
PHIL4: Plato's 'The Republic'.

What I find is the best method for revising is going through all the notes and resources I have and making 'perfect' paragraphs. These are paragraphs that I could use as part of an essay or a short answer question in the exam. Then, when it gets closer to the exam, I condense these paragraphs into bullet points and I learn these bullet points. Because the bullet points were made from the paragraphs remembering them brings back pretty much all of the paragraph.

I think I might still have some of the paragraphs I did for AS and I am in the process of making them for A2. If anyone wants the AS ones I can upload the ones I did. Once I have done the A2 ones I can also upload them if anyone wants to look.

Reply 9

Use Err Name

Yes! Please do! I could really do with the materials of someone who got 100% in Phil1 :O

Reply 10

hannnaaaaah

Well, I don't think I was as organised with perfect paragraphs as I thought I was. I can only find an incomplete set on reason and experience. I can't really remember what other revision I did, other than handwritten notes for persons. But here's what I can find anyway.

I think the bullet point notes are complete for rationalism and empiricism. There's a complete explanation of Kant's conceptual schemes, but I never got round to evaluating it.
The perfect paragraphs work well for 15 mark questions. I don't seem to have anything as good for criticisms.

I also have typed essays on some AS topics. I think they mostly scored between 25-27/30. I'll check on the marks I got and upload some of the good ones later. I have some PHIL3 essays as well, which I can upload.

(edited 12 years ago)

PERFECT PARAGRAPHS.doc30.2KB

My Reason and Experience Revision Notes.doc27.6KB

Reply 11

Use Err Name

Brilliant! Thanks you so much! <3

Reply 12

peasandqueues

Original post by hannnaaaaah

=
PHIL4: Plato's 'The Republic'.

I am also yet to do this. What revision materials are you using? I'm finding it hard to get stuff for it as the AQA A2 book only covers PHIL3 not 4 :frown:

Reply 13

hannnaaaaah

Original post by peasandqueues

I am also yet to do this. What revision materials are you using? I'm finding it hard to get stuff for it as the AQA A2 book only covers PHIL3 not 4 :frown:

My teacher said to get this if we want a B or above
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Plato-Republic-Routledge-Philosophy-Guidebooks/dp/0415095328/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1334174903&sr=8-5
I bought it but I have yet to have much of a look at it because we haven't done much of The Republic yet.

Obviously, get the actual text as well, that has a few notes. Make sure it's the Desmond Lee translation.

Also in the reading list he has put:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Republic-Plato-Philosophy-Focus/dp/0340888032/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1334175219&sr=1-1 This one's meant to be the most straight forward and it has diagrams. You might have used the PIF textbook for AS and I guess this is similar to that.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Platos-Republic-Biography-Shook-World/dp/1843543478/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1334175356&sr=1-1 I might get one because I've read one book by Simon Blackburn before and it wasn't too hard to understand.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Read-Plato-Richard-Kraut/dp/1847080324/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1334175430&sr=1-5 He described this a short and useful.

I hope this helps.

EDIT: Also on there is Micheal Lacewing's Philosophy for A2: Unit 4

(edited 12 years ago)

Reply 14

sosotalk

The Lacewing is also available online for free. :biggrin:

Reply 15

RebeccaC

I am doing Political Philo, and Moral Philo..
And Hume's 'An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding.' By the looks of it, not many people are studying Hume. Any help would be greatly appreciated! :smile:

Reply 16

Dodecahedron

Original post by Mill

You star, thank you so much. I've now reserved said book from the library
I'm in a rut. I got a high B at AS (8 marks away from an A ) and then I got a new teacher for A2 leading to Ds in the Political Philosophy module. I'm really struggling, especially with the liberty and the law bit of the module and nation-states. We seem to have missed chunks of the syllabus. Is there anything else you know of that could help? Or does anyone know any reasonably priced tutors? I'm fully aware that time is running out.

Thanks everyone in advance. Sorry to slightly hijack this thread

Reply 17

Mill

Original post by Dodecahedron

I'm really struggling, especially with the liberty and the law bit of the module and nation-states. We seem to have missed chunks of the syllabus.

I've attached my notes on the Liberty topic. They're certainly not finished, still need the detail, but they're a good place to start.

I used the Lacewing textbook (which is really good by the way) and 'Freedom' by Nigel Warburton (good for details, goes more in depth).

If people like these notes I'll upload the rest, I've got 4/5 of the political philosophy topics done and 2 of the religion ones, as well as 4/5 of the chapters from On Liberty.

Liberty.docx20.1KB

Reply 18

divina commedia

Original post by hannnaaaaah

Thank you very much! :smile:

Reply 19

chandlerbong

Original post by hannnaaaaah

Hey, could you post any useful notes/perfect paragraphs for phil3 but mainly Phil4. I don't really get how to revise them properly -.- anything will be useful. thanks :smile: