Edexcel A-level Politics Paper 1 - 20th May 2025 [Exam Chat]

Hey
does anyone have any predictions for what may come up in the core ideas / ideologies part ??

Does anyone know if in an essay on minor parties I only used Reform UK for my examples if I would be penalised? And, if I used the LibDems, because I know the LibDems are an established party, would it be wrong for me to use them in an essay for minor parties?

Depending on your examples for reform, I don’t think that you would be penalised so long as they are relevant to the question and not repeated points.
Lib Dem’s in my opinion* are a small / minor party as the UK has a focus on Labour and Conservative so you should be alright with that !

You’d get penalised for classing the Lib Dems as a minor party since the exam board classes them as a major party, due to them being in government during the 2010 coalition. Better minor parties to talk about other than Reform would be the Green Party, SNP, Plaid Cymru and if you’ve got the knowledge of NI parties, Sinn Féin and the DUP.

You’d get penalised for classing the Lib Dems as a minor party since the exam board classes them as a major party, due to them being in government during the 2010 coalition. Better minor parties to talk about other than Reform would be the Green Party, SNP, Plaid Cymru and if you’ve got the knowledge of NI parties, Sinn Féin and the DUP.

Does anyone have advice for last minute revision? I'm currently just writing out essay plans and attempting to memorise them. My knowledge of evidence is pretty good for each topic, I struggle a lot with coming up with themes/points/factors for questions which is where I often lose marks for structure.

Has anyone prepared an essay on how much the two main parties agree/disagree with policies and ideas? If so, what did you write about?

when they mention something in the question try to incorporate it into another concept and talk about them together rather than separately if that makes sense. so like for example if you got a question about if media is the most important factor in determining party success you could combine media with other factors like leadership and governing competence (the strength of a party's leader is often determined by their media popularity, governing incompetence is often spotlighted by the media). basically just look at whatever concept is in the question and think which other concepts it can be interlinked with because that makes the structure of weak point-strong counterpoint a lot easier to do/ clearer for the examiner to see your line of argument. idk if i articulated this well so if you're still confused lmk

Are you sure the Lib Dem’s would penalise us? How bad are we talking

I think I understand, thank you. I don't know why I struggle so much with finding points. How do you structure your essays? I tend to try and find 3 themes if possible, 1 agree 2 disagree or vice versa, with counter-points. I always start with the counter-point then follow on with my main point and a mini-conclusion. Does that sound good?

i basically do the same thing
intro, 2 sections (weak point-stronger point, mini conclusion per section) then a big conclusion at the end

You only write two paragraphs?

I write 2 sections, 4 paragraphs, so that I can devote more time to my AO2 and AO3. When I do 3 sections I find that I'm so rushed to get 3 points written down that it degrades the quality of my analysis and evaluation. It doesn't affect my mark at all (I've actually been getting a lot better doing 2 sections than when I was doing 3), and the Kathy Schindler revision guide says to do 'more than one and less than four', so I won't get penalised for it