GCSE Short Course RS - hardest humanity subject at GCSE

A study was conducted by Durham University over the relative difficulty of subjects in GCSEs and A-levels.

(You may be surprised to also know that General Studies is apparently the "hardest" A-level out there - above Physics)

However, this thread is concerning GCSE RS Short Course, the hardest humanity to study at GCSE. It is apparently harder than the full course (???)

Is this bull****? I've read MANY responses on TSR about how GCSE RS is "a lot of crap" and achieved "A* without revision". Worse is said for General Studies...

Is it a case that many people don't give a **** about GCSE RE/A-level General Studies, thus say any crap they want, obtaining a poor grade - which gives the impression that it's hard?

This is the graph of the relative difficulty of subjects at GCSE, but the one for A-levels is supplied on the link above:

Reply 1

kerily

I went to my short-course RS GCSE drunk and actually wrote 'see paragraph 3 of my previous answer' on the question paper. I got an A*.

Also, art is near-impossible due to the sheer quantity of workload; I think that should be higher.

Reply 2

EatRainbows

God RS is probably my easiest GCSE. They don't give a **** what you say as long as you back it up with "It's in the bible"

Reply 3

username549578

I went into that exam without having done a single bit of revision. I never finished the paper. I got an A*.

-_-

Reply 4

Slowbro93

I found it to be my hardest GCSE, along with English Lang and Lit :frown:

Was so happy to get an A in all 3 :woo:

Reply 5

iPthreefifthteen

Maybe teachers don't put enough emphasis on them.

Reply 6

medbh4805

It really depends on the option. Some involve learning copious amounts of scripture verbatim, others are laughably easy. I imagine schools tend to pick the"easy" options to boost the league tables.

I know for a fact I couldn't walk into a paper on the Qu'ran or something and get an A* without revision.

Reply 7

username133326

With regards to the A-Level graph: BOOM - my 3 A2s were all harder than maths :cool:

General Studies was not one of them - we didn't even do that at my school...

Reply 8

username133326

Original post by EatRainbows

God RS is probably my easiest GCSE. They don't give a **** what you say as long as you back it up with "It's in the bible"

Or, after whatever crap one writes, one says "but [other denomination], on the otherhand, believes this:..."

Reply 9

Mendeleev's Table

I honestly cannot see how RS can be considered hard. You literally voice your opinion and add a religious quote/belief with it, and a one sentence rebuttal in the 6 mark question.
Almost the easiest GCSE I am doing just in front of ICT.

Reply 10

JIRAIYA-ERO-SENNIN

it was beyond easy. maybe it differs between exam boards, that discrepancy shouldn't be too great though.

Reply 11

Becca :)

Well at my school we were in mixed ability sets for short course RS...meaning that in all classes there were people who just wanted to disrupt the lesson - may have pulled a few people's grades down. However, it really was an easy exam, I read the textbook once as revision and got an A*.
As for general studies it depends what kind of person you are - if you're good at mcqs and can write a decent essay its easy - I didn't have any lessons and got 90% and 100% - I know people who went to a lesson every week and got Us

Reply 12

emmakh123

almost everyone in my school gets A*s or at LEAST an A at Short Course RS. We only got 1 hr a week of lessons so I think that means the exam is pretty damn easy. so i dont know what the survey was on about.

as for general studies at A-Level, nobody actually gives a damn about the exam as it tends to be compulsory but universitys dont accept it as an A-Level when they issue uni offers. therefore noone can be bothered to revise for it and therefore do badly - hence seeming to be one of the hardest A-Levels.

Reply 13

street.lovin'

Right, I really cannot be bothered to read the document on the website.

im so academic, do you know what method they use to conduct this research?

If they use the pass rate (A-C) as a measure whether a subject is hard or easy it may be because people don't tend to give a crap about RS Short Course or General Studiesand , as a result, didn't try to do well in the exam. So they ended up with Us and Es. (I was one of them, handed in blank papers) Many people just ended up sleeping in the exam room for General Studies.

So, the result for General Studies were quite terrible at my school, at least. And the researcher think that it's harder because not many peopel pass it when actually, people just don't put effort in.