OCR A2 Religious Studies - Thursday 6th June 2013

Thought I would start a thread early for anyone sitting any OCR R.S A2 papers in June.

I'm sitting Philosophy of Religion and New Testament.

Just starting my notes now for June, as I need an A desperately in June!

Hope this thread to be useful for anyone to post their notes or we can ask questions etc.

Also would be nice to see anyone taking the New Testament paper, as I have never met anyone on here whose taken it yet :frown:

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Reply 1

BorisGlichington

Philosophy for Religion and Religious Ethics here.

I'm hopelessly failing with the Philosophy of Religion side, the only topic I remotely understand is Miracles, and I got an A for AS! Just seems so different this year, not only the 35 mark question structure, but also the topics seem more abstract and applied, rather than concrete and easy to learn like the theories last year. It also seems like all the different textbooks all differ in their approaches to the topics :/

Reply 2

JordanC55

Original post by Divergent

Hey! I'm doing Religious Ethics and New Testament! I absolutely detest New Testament, but, I go to a Catholic school thus they force us to take it!

I'm absolutely dreading June! Hopefully I'll get a B, as I got at AS! I got an A in Religious Ethics & a C in New Testament... I'm dreadful at it! However, I knocked a bottle of coke over in the NT exam and it exploded in the exam hall, maybe that could explain it?

Glad to finally meet another person doing New Testament though! Everyone I know does Philosophy & Ethics...

Reply 3

xMr_BrightSide

Philosophy of Religion and Religious Ethics here! Hate the business and environmental ethics side, with the shallow/deep ecology stuff.... boring as hell.

Not to pleased with the nature of God-centric A2 Philosophy syllabus either tbh, but it has at least led to some good debates in class :biggrin:

What UMS do people need for the grade they want? Luckily, I only need to get a low B in each paper for an A overall so I'm not too worried about the exams

Reply 4

BorisGlichington

Original post by xMr_BrightSide

What UMS do people need for the grade they want? Luckily, I only need to get a low B in each paper for an A overall so I'm not too worried about the exams

Doing the same as you, I need a high B in both to get an A. But like you said with the Philosophy side, it's not great :/ and need all the help I can get!

Reply 5

BorisGlichington

Does anybody know any revision guides for A2 Philosophy of Religion or Ethics?

Reply 6

JordanC55

Original post by xMr_BrightSide

What UMS do people need for the grade they want? Luckily, I only need to get a low B in each paper for an A overall so I'm not too worried about the exams

Just finished environmental ethics! :smile:

I didn't mind it that much!

Reply 7

mappostolova

Does anybody know what questions came up in the jan 2013 paper for Philosophy and Ethics? So we can know which questions would definitely not crop up in the june exam. :smile:

Reply 8

okonomiyaki

Omg am I the only one who hates applied ethics? I much prefer philosophy/meta-ethics because little needs to be related to scenarios which are like...in the world...right now. NO EXAM I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THE BEST RESPONSE TO ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES IS. LET'S TALK ABOUT THE AFTERLIFE.

Reply 9

Sarah Richard

I am doing AS and I was wondering if anyone could help (AS OCR Phiolosophy of Religion and Applied ethics 1).
How do you go about answering questions that ask (in 10 markers) e.g.' Utilitarianism is the best religious ethic to use when approaching the issue of genetic engineering' Discuss?

Do you use case studies?

Do you talk about the different types of Utilitarianism and then dicuss why preference (as an example)might be good for like theraputic cloning and give a case study example and perhaps why Kantian thics might be too rigid?

Reply 10

bdw29483

Hey everyone! Yeah I'm doing two exams on the 6th! Philosophy of Religion and Ethics. Argh!! Like people have said, finding A2 Philosophy of Religion really hard!! All of the topics just seem to blur into one another. Religious Language and Scripture only topics I vaguely like! Nature of God is awful!! I'm using the OCR textbook by Matthew Taylor, which is OK and definitely learn more from it than I do in lessons. Good point to start.
Anyway, I really need to start revising and doing notes for these exams!

Reply 11

Tabzqt

I am doing Philosophy of Religion and Religious Ethics, hoping for an A*.

Reply 12

mappostolova

Original post by Tabzqt

I am doing Philosophy of Religion and Religious Ethics, hoping for an A*.

Me too. What sort of techniques or revision tactics do you use.

Reply 13

ktanrv

Im resitting everything there are times I wish I didnt take the subejct as I cant get the grade Im hoping for, all i need is a C to get to where i want to be in life and it just seems so difficult at this late stage

Reply 14

BorisGlichington

What resources are you guys using to learn/revise?

Reply 15

Divergent

Original post by JordanC55

Yay another New Testament person!
I absolutely detest it also. I'm literally just going to learn the bible passages and hope I can magically get a B. I got a B on the AS paper in June (no idea how...). I don't go to a Catholic School, but we did Mark's Gospel for GCSE, so they figured it would be "easy" for us at AS knowing a lot of the passages... I find it extremely difficult! Especially as there is literally no textbook at all!

I'm dreading June as well :frown:

I'd like an A overall (a B would be okay.. but would mean I need an A in chemistry, which probably won't happen).

I think the coke incident is definately a cause for the C! I'm surprised you was allowed it in the exam room! :P

When do you think you'll start revision for NT? x

Reply 16

Divergent

Original post by mappostolova

Does anybody know what questions came up in the jan 2013 paper for Philosophy and Ethics? So we can know which questions would definitely not crop up in the june exam. :smile:

James came up. Logical Positivists. (i think).
Try the examiners reports on the OCR website. You can usually sort of figure out what questions were asked x

Reply 17

Divergent

Original post by lordmackery

What resources are you guys using to learn/revise?

1. My teachers hand written notes (literally 4 files full just for the Philosophy).
2. Sarah K Tyler AS/A2 Religious Studies Revision Guide
3. Matthew Taylor - OCR Philosophy of Religion (all his books).
4. Greg Dewar - Oxford Revision Guide AS/A2 Philosophy & Ethics (only using the philosophy sections)
5. Anne Jordan/Neil Lockyer/Edwin Tate - Philosophy of Religion for A Level
6. Robert A Bowie - OCR Study Guide
7. Some weird synoptic book that is good.
8. Libby Ahluwalia - OCR text books (probably the best one in my opinion).

Got a few other reading sources (a philosophy of religion mini book), but not that much else really. I'm producing my own notes by trying to consolidate all the above books.

As for New Testament paper, I have WAY too many books for that one. John Drane's book is good for that paper though (not that i've even attempted to start revision for that paper though :P) x

Reply 18

Divergent

Original post by xMr_BrightSide

What UMS do people need for the grade they want? Luckily, I only need to get a low B in each paper for an A overall so I'm not too worried about the exams

For me to get an A overall, I need a total of 153 UMS in June. (so high B's).

For a B overall, I need a total of 113 UMS (so I can get mid D's in both papers and still get a B overall. YAY) :smile:

Depends on how much effort I actually put into revising. I did the night before as revision last year (not good at all), so I'm hoping to do alright. An A is really what I need for Uni!

We're just about to start the attributes and nature of God section and then we are finished. Is it that bad? :P
I hate hate hate hate the religious language section. Absolutely no interest at all there for me :P

Reply 19

Divergent

Here's what came up in January:

1. Via Negativa.
2. God's attributes (focused on his omniscience)
3. Critically evaluate the main aims and conclusion of William James in the Varieties of Relgiious Experience
4. Discuss the extent to which embodied existence after death is a coherent concept.

I totally would have done questions 2 and 4 :frown:

Number 4 is like my favourite topic. :frown:

How about for June (I reckon)
1. Symbol/Analogy/Myth
2. Concepts of Miracle and their criticisms from Hume and Wiles
3. Boethius
4. Plato's expression of the body and soul is absurb, discuss.

Just a thought ^. I'd probably do 2 and 4 on this as well.
3. critically evauluate the main aims and conclusion of William James in The Varieties of Religious Experience and Discuss the ectent to which embodied existence after death is a coherent concept