Any ideas for what might come up on Monday?
Last year it was on the life of the Buddha, nibbana, zen and social activism, so most likely none of those.

Reply 5

Zoe_H

Original post by Silent_Spring_

Any ideas for what might come up on Monday?
Last year it was on the life of the Buddha, nibbana, zen and social activism, so most likely none of those.

Apparently some teachers have been guessing the historical context, but im thinking something from last year or specimen as metaethicscwas on both and it came up this year so there might be a similar pattern maybe- especially on areas people find harder so maybe something like madhyamaka but dont take my work for it, thats just a theory

Reply 6

gjd800

People find Madhyamaka hard?

Reply 7

lh2018

I understand that madhyamaka is the school of nagarjuna, so in essence would you just answer a question on Sunday’s, 2 levels of truth, nibbana in samsara etc?

Reply 8

Zoe_H

Original post by lh2018

I understand that madhyamaka is the school of nagarjuna, so in essence would you just answer a question on Sunday’s, 2 levels of truth, nibbana in samsara etc?

yeah thats what i would do im guessing by 'sunday' it auto corrected and you meant sunyata- i guess it would depend on the question- i just find it hard because I end up running out of things to talk about

Reply 9

lh2018

I’m finding it difficult to understand what they could specifically ask about madhymaka itself/nagarjuna itself. We’ve never done a question like that in school, do you have an example of a question so I could try an essay plan or something?

Original post by Zoe_H

Reply 10

Zoe_H

Original post by lh2018

yeah we didnt either! this website https://revisionworld.com/a2-level-level-revision/religious-studies-level-revision/rs-level-past-papers/ocr-level-rs-past-papers
has all the past papers on and the mark schemes so that might be useful- i think there was a madhyamaka/ nagasena question in the 2018 paper! hope this helps :smile:

Reply 11

Kirstyhaynes

does anyone think that gender is likely to come up?? hate that topic so much.

Reply 12

lh2018

given that it want on the specimen paper or the paper last year, it seems likely. However, there is nothing to stop them repeating previous topics (as we discovered with ethics).

Original post by Kirstyhaynes

does anyone think that gender is likely to come up?? hate that topic so much.

Reply 13

Zoe_H

Original post by Kirstyhaynes

does anyone think that gender is likely to come up?? hate that topic so much.

same i hate gender too! at we if it comes we can choose not to do it

Reply 14

gjd800

Original post by lh2018

It depends how you have covered it and how deeply you have covered it. A lot of Madhyamaka philosophy is based in philosophy of language which I guess the board won't go at too heavily because you'd really need to read Sanskrit. The other options are maybe stuff like whether or not emptiness is a coherent concept, whether Nagarjuna is justified in total anti-foundationalism/anti-essentialism, how far Madhyamaka is a reassertion of or a departure from early Pali Buddhism.

Reply 15

Kirstyhaynes

same!! I hate most of y13 topics tbf.

Original post by Zoe_H

same i hate gender too! at we if it comes we can choose not to do it

Reply 16

Kirstyhaynes

very true, I hope they repeat Buddhism from the east thats a good topic

Original post by lh2018

given that it want on the specimen paper or the paper last year, it seems likely. However, there is nothing to stop them repeating previous topics (as we discovered with ethics).

Reply 17

Zoe_H

Original post by Kirstyhaynes

same!! I hate most of y13 topics tbf.

same that and activism as we were running out of time and so we had to do most of it ourselves

Reply 18

Kirstyhaynes

omg same I hate activism! but it came up last year so fingers crossed it won't come up again.

Original post by Zoe_H

same that and activism as we were running out of time and so we had to do most of it ourselves

Reply 19

Silent_Spring_

We did a couple in class: "To what extent can Madhyamaka philosophy be practically implicated in Buddhist life?" and "Nagarjuna is only interested in sunyata - Discuss". :smile:

Original post by lh2018