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Edexcel A-level Religious Studies: Paper 2, Ethics - 11th June 2019

Hi, I've created this thread to discuss this year's upcoming exam for the Ethics paper of the Religious Studies A-level course.
Paper 1, Philosophy - 4th June 2019
Paper 3, Islam - 19th June 2019


[*]Natural Law
[*]Situation Ethics - Anthology
[*]Utilitarianism - Anthology
[*]Kantian Ethics
[*]Virtue Ethics - Anthology
[*][color="#000000"]Morality
(edited 4 years ago)

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Any predictions on what can come up on the A level paper
Reply 2
Original post by hobashir
Any predictions on what can come up on the A level paper


Itโ€™s a bit early unfortunately to come up with predictions for the paper. This is because weโ€™re only the second year to be sitting the paper. What we can do is look at the previous papers to see what has come up as theyโ€™re less likely to come up - however remember that they could still come up nevertheless!
I can post the questions that have previously come up but I donโ€™t recommend relying on these.
Reply 3
Sample paper:
1) Explore the contribution made by Situation Ethics to moral decision making.
2) Assess the claim that religious approaches to sameโ€“sex relationships have been influenced by social and cultural changes.
3 (a) Clarify the ideas illustrated in this passage about Kantโ€™s idea of the categorical imperative.
(b) Analyse the extent to which the categorical imperative serves as a reliable foundation for moral decision making.
4) Evaluate the view that Utilitarianism continues to offer a useful way of resolving moral dilemmas.

2018 Paper:
1) Explore the role of Utilitarianism in moral decision making.
2) Assess the view that ethical language is essentially emotive.
3 (a) Clarify ideas illustrated in this passage about euthanasia.
3 (b) Analyse the issues raised for medical ethics by the concepts of the sanctity and value of life.
4) Evaluate the view that issues in sexual ethics are not helped by appealing to religious teaching.
(edited 4 years ago)
I reckon environmental ethics and war & peace will come up as they haven't been tested yet
im confused why they did an 'a' and 'b' for question 3? Thought we only had 4 options to chose from, or id it just dependent on what scheme of content we have learned? But thanks for posting this, really helpful x@Emmy_Girl
Reply 6
Original post by sophieharrisonxx
im confused why they did an 'a' and 'b' for question 3? Thought we only had 4 options to chose from, or id it just dependent on what scheme of content we have learned? But thanks for posting this, really helpful x@Emmy_Girl


Youโ€™re welcome! Yes there are 4 questions - you need to answer them all. The third one is an Anthology question. It is split up into a 10 mark and a 20 mark. Which exam board are you doing? This is for Edexel.
panic over I'm doing OCR its similar content but its slightly different layout x
Original post by Emmy_Girl
Youโ€™re welcome! Yes there are 4 questions - you need to answer them all. The third one is an Anthology question. It is split up into a 10 mark and a 20 mark. Which exam board are you doing? This is for Edexel.
Reply 8
Original post by sophieharrisonxx
panic over I'm doing OCR its similar content but its slightly different layout x


Oh. Have you sat any RS exams so far? How did you find them?
Original post by Emmy_Girl
Oh. Have you sat any RS exams so far? How did you find them?


Yeah first one today which covered all of our philosophy questions, topics were: Aristotle's 4 Causes, Language games, Problem of Evil and Teological and Cosmological argument. I finished everything on time and wrote everything I could have so feeling pretty happy with it. Ethics exam is next week
Reply 10
Original post by sophieharrisonxx
Yeah first one today which covered all of our philosophy questions, topics were: Aristotle's 4 Causes, Language games, Problem of Evil and Teological and Cosmological argument. I finished everything on time and wrote everything I could have so feeling pretty happy with it. Ethics exam is next week


Thatโ€™s good! We also had our philosophy one today. The topics that came up were cosmological argument, life after death, religious language, and problem of evil. We have our ethics one next week too - good luck!
Sounds fairly similar to ours, thank you and good luck to you too! x
Original post by Emmy_Girl
Thatโ€™s good! We also had our philosophy one today. The topics that came up were cosmological argument, life after death, religious language, and problem of evil. We have our ethics one next week too - good luck!
anyone have any notes for the ethics antholgies. struggling to find a website like philosophy dungeon for ethic or islam. any help will be appreciated thank you
Seems likely to have a part 3 on Aristolian Virtue ethics. As the other 3 extracts have been covered (Situation Ethics was in the 2016 specimen paper).
Original post by Emmy_Girl
Sample paper:
1) Explore the contribution made by Situation Ethics to moral decision making.
2) Assess the claim that religious approaches to sameโ€“sex relationships have been influenced by social and cultural changes.
3 (a) Clarify the ideas illustrated in this passage about Kantโ€™s idea of the categorical imperative.
(b) Analyse the extent to which the categorical imperative serves as a reliable foundation for moral decision making.
4) Evaluate the view that Utilitarianism continues to offer a useful way of resolving moral dilemmas.

2018 Paper:
1) Explore the role of Utilitarianism in moral decision making.
2) Assess the view that ethical language is essentially emotive.
3 (a) Clarify ideas illustrated in this passage about euthanasia.
3 (b) Analyse the issues raised for medical ethics by the concepts of the sanctity and value of life.
4) Evaluate the view that issues in sexual ethics are not helped by appealing to religious teaching.
I reckon for ethics itโ€™ll be either virtue ethics or kant as the anthology question and then for the 20 marker theyโ€™ll ask you to compare the ideas on morality betweeen Aristotle and Kant - similar to the 20 marker for Islam last year
Hi could someone please help me with comparing Aristotle's and Kant's ideas although i know the two theories i don't understand which points to include as a comparison. Also does anyone have any notes on both of their anthologies as that would be very helpful as well.
Thank you :smile:
How ready does everyone feel?
Original post by Motivation101
How ready does everyone feel?

Not very ready at all tbh - I just hope the questions lend themselves to my stronger topics rather than other topics like meta-ethics that I'm not very good at
How did everyone find the exam
Original post by omgitshamzarais
How did everyone find the exam

Skipped the 12 marker but otherwise solid :smile:. What about you?

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