Religious studies(philosophy and ethics OCR) or Maths at A2

Hi,

How is the step for both of these subjects from AS to A2, did you enjoy them and would you recommend them ? I have no Idea which one to drop !

For RS, it's pretty intense. I remember how the workload just doubled in weight and it was even more theories you had to remember. The exam style questions changed too. At AS, it was 2 questions but at A-level there's only 1 question. They merge to two AS questions into 1 at A-level which means you constantly have to argue back and forth. For example, explain, argue, criticise, argue, conclusion. You have keep doing that backwards and forwards. It's so hard to master cause it can be confusing esp in exam conditions when you're trying to pull out every memory you have from revising.

But it was much more interesting than AS, well for Philosophy that is. Ethics is crap. You study silly things like business ethics and environmental ethics and stuff. It's so boring! But it does get harder cause of the concepts like the problem with religious language and the problem with ethical language (metaethics) which is ridiculously hard. I hated that.

It does test you though and even though I hated it, I loved it so much at the same time and now study Philosophy at uni.

I say, drop your least favourite A-level. That's what it ultimately comes down to. A2 level is hard work so studying something you don't want or like, will really effect your grades in the long run.

Good luck!

Thanks for the reply, is there still applied bits for ethics (abortion, war, euthanasia etc. ). Also is it a lot harder to get Higher grades in A2 than it is at AS ? Also when you say the workload has doubled does that mean there is twice as much content to learn ?

Thanks.

I enjoyed RS at A2, granted some topics are a little difficult but once you've got your head around it it's quite simple.
Philosophy you'll study life after death, religious language (sounds boring but it's actually my favourite topic), religious experience, nature of God (this is attributes from AS, not much to say on this topic).
In ethics you'll study virtue ethics, meta ethics (similar to religious language), sexual ethics, environmental ethics, business ethics, and then there is free will and determinism, and conscience. Free will and determinism and the conscience topic are my personal favourites in ethics, and if you like psychology then you'll enjoy those two topics.
Our teacher told us that people do tend to get lower marks at A2 but purely because of the style of the essay and how you're supposed to structure it.
But it all depends on what you enjoy.
Good luck!

Drop Maths.

Religious studies, you develop great essay writing skills from the course and more transferable skills😊 it is by far my favourite subject


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Thank you, was it a big step up from AS ?