How can I achieve an A or A* in Religious Studies?

Hey, so this is by far my weekest subject. I'm doing the edexcel course and the 2 exams I'm sitting will be in Unit 3 and Unit 16 (Mark's Gospel). I got a C in my mock, which i was really disappointed about. Somehow, my teacher has still predicted me an A, which I would love to get, but the way things are going now, that will never happen. I'm really good at memorising the key words, but that is about it. I never seem to have enough points to back up my argument, and I never remember scripture passages. It would be much appreciated if someone could give me some revision tips on how best to succeed in R.E and also, their method for remembering evrrything required to get an A/A*.

Thanks

Hi there! I've moved this to the correct forum for you check out the other threads in here - they may have an answer for you.

Hey I got UMS 100% in my edexcel re gcse last year. I did Unit 3 and Unit 10.

For (a) make sure you learn all the definitions off by heart as they're supposed to be easy marks. If you learnt the exact ones in the book you're guarenteed 2/2 marks. I did this by making cards with the word on one side and the definition on the other side and got people to test me.

My teacher recommended for us to watch the videos by Mr McMillan REvise on YouTube. He does a 5 minute revision video on every topic in Unit 3. I found them very helpful as points are clearly presented with no waffle. You can remember all the points then use them when answering part c) questions.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNmrIM4Dl3U

For part (b) and (d) questions can can use the same points. So just learn 4 points for every topic to be able to answer a part c) question.
For example:
For "Do you agree with euthanasia? Give two reasons for your point of view" you could use 2 of the exact same points as you would use for "Explain why some Christians do not agree with euthanasia."

I found part (d) questions the trickiest, but I basically learnt 3 points for agree and 3 points for disagree from every possible topic.

It's important that you learn some scripture quotations to impress the examiner. However it's not essential for every topic, just typical ones such as "thou shalt not kill" when talking about abortion.

I'm afraid I didn't do Unit 16 so I can't help on that.

Good luck

Hi there, im doing my exam this year for Unit 1 and 8 and aiming for an A*! But in current mocks i've not been getting that.

My teacher keeps telling us that for the 8 mark (c) question to write 4 PEE paragraphs and often i find myself struggling to fit that all in the space they give u in the exam paper and in the time you're supposed to.

And other people on youtube videos - e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sV_L7UNaTc and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19sNFW9jYdE - have said that you simply need 4 points and thats it! So im really confused.

How did you tackle the 8 mark questions, did you simply write 4 points? Because if so, then this exam is definitely easier than i thought!!!
THANKS SO MUCH!

Hi sorry for the late reply!

Yes, for the 8 markers I just wrote 4 points, but separated them into paragraphs to make it easy for the examiner to identify them. So then if they look at your paper and see 4 distinct paragraphs they will automatically know you've got 4 points and so will likely give you full marks. Obviously they have to be correct but it's not very difficult to learn them.

There's definitely not enough time to write PEE paragraphs. Your teacher seems to be over-complicating things!