OCR A-level Religious Studies Paper 1 - 10th June 2025 [Exam Chat]

Oh no, I interpreted it as being about materialism and consciousness (as in mind/soul) being explained by material interactions like Ryle or Dawkins' ideas 😭 I only talked for about 1/2 a paragraph about Descartes, do you think that would still be ok? I did talk about how Ryle refutes the idea though? But this would make my overall argument way off

i did this , i think you are being scare mongered here icl. if you argued it was convincing then its fine to mostly talk about materialism, thats what i did

People using so many booklets is actually stressing me out 😭 I was proud of myself for using all 13 pages of the first one and now I'm worried I didn't write enough :,)
I guess it's my writing's quite small...?

Ah I'm so glad! Just realised I forgot to mention the parable of the gardener and the weeds but oh well. Was running out of things to say for Flew as barely revised falsification/verification but my evaluation was probably strongest on this essay (I'm hoping!)

People using so many booklets is actually stressing me out 😭 I was proud of myself for using all 13 pages of the first one and now I'm worried I didn't write enough :,)
I guess it's my writing's quite small...?

I'm stressing out so much over the next two exams, especially since I messed up the first question in Paper one. Could anyone let me know how many marks I would be able to get?- I answered question one and misunderstood it, not realising that the idea of the conscious interacting with the mind was dualist. I mistook it for materliasm, and argued with materialism over substance dualism-however I argued that materialists argued that the conscious interacted with the body as one material substance- i used all the right AO1 I think, with Dawkins biological materliasm and Aristotle's monism compared to Plato and Descartes (then Ryle), I just messed up the line of argument when I linked back to the question. Does anyone know what the maximum mark I could get for this would be?

I'm stressing out so much over the next two exams, especially since I messed up the first question in Paper one. Could anyone let me know how many marks I would be able to get?- I answered question one and misunderstood it, not realising that the idea of the conscious interacting with the mind was dualist. I mistook it for materliasm, and argued with materialism over substance dualism-however I argued that materialists argued that the conscious interacted with the body as one material substance- i used all the right AO1 I think, with Dawkins biological materliasm and Aristotle's monism compared to Plato and Descartes (then Ryle), I just messed up the line of argument when I linked back to the question. Does anyone know what the maximum mark I could get for this would be?

i dont think material interactions directly means dualist, i think you answered the question right. Everyone who i have spoken to, including teachers, have said that material interactions quite literally means materialism. honestly it was such a broad question and so many people answered differently that marks will hopefully be awarded generously. I am pretty sure you answered the question correctly, and seeing the messages on here would say that too. the question wanted a materialism focus, and it most definitely wasn't explicitly dualist, but if people talked about dualism it would be correct as well. as long as you justified what you were saying, like at the end of every para i just said "and this is why consciousness can fully be explained by material interaction"- something like that, then honestly you have absolutely nothing to stress about.

the question was - consciousness can be fully understood by material interaction. this is not an explicit dualism question, and if you took material interaction to be the interaction between the material body which contains the biological process of consciousness and the external world then you are not messed it up at all. if you had answered a question called : substance dualism best explains consciousness , then your loa would be limited. however , you do not need to bring in extensive content on dualists if you agreed with the statement that material understanding of physical and physical interactions ( as opposed to physical - the body and non physical - the soul).i think your LOA sounds perfectly cogent. and the person you should be contacting is really your teacher as they know your writing style best. also bear in mind that there are schools who answered this question as a conscious (freud , aquinas ) questions , it was in a strange wording and you will not have lost any marks if your loa and the essay content makes sense