A-level Religious Studies Tips and Q&A Thread

Volunteer Section Leader, Clearing and Applications Advisor

Are you considering A-level Religious Studies?
If you are here are some of my top tips for A-level Religious Studies! I have split them into categories to make it easier find what you may be looking for.

Revision

Topics – a good way to revise is by topics, but by also understanding the links from one topic to another. Your understanding of multiple topics is often assessed in a single question so having a solid understanding of individuals topics, but also how they link to other topics is very important. A great way of showing these links is to make mind maps. Making flashcards is also good to learn the key facts about each topic.

Sources of wisdom – make sure you know important scholars for every topic. A good place to look at to begin with is the specification because it shows the scholars that you need to know about. You could make mind maps or fact files about specific scholars. You also need to memorise quotes by these scholars or other sources which the best way is to use active recall (e.g. by using flashcards). You need to make sure you understand the context of quotes and have your own interpretation of them because that is where you get a lot of marks.

Practise questions – by far the best way to revise for RS is doing practise exam questions because you will become familiar quickly with the variety of different ways your exam board may ask questions. This is the best way to find out how you may be asked about multiple topics in the same question. This will also help you with your timing in exams because you are usually pushed for time.

There are a lot of good YouTube channels that can help you revise to your specific specification (e.g. Ben Wardle and I Think Therefore I Teach). There are also good websites like
https://alevelphilosophyandreligion.com/

Essays

Make sure you understand how to structure your essays when answering questions. While there is no set structure expected and the structure will vary from question to question, you should know how you want to structure an essay but don’t be afraid to stray from that structure if the question does not suit it.

Make sure you have at least a short plan of what you will write for each essay question, as this will help keep you on track and help you structure your essay in a way that will make sense!

Exam technique

You need to make sure your timing in exams is very good because you are very pressed for time. The best way to this is using timed practise questions so you get a feel for how long you have when you write a question. For example, OCR exams are 2hrs hours long and 120 marks (three 40 mark questions) so to practise this you would give yourself 40 minutes to do an exam question.

Doing full practise papers is very important as well because for OCR you have a choice of four questions, but you only answer three. You cannot waste a lot of time trying to figure out which ones to answer. Usually, you will have a feeling as to which ones you should answer.

Please also use this thread to ask questions about A-level RS!

The volunteer supporting this thread is @flowersinmyhair
I studied OCR A-level Religious Studies, so I may not be able to answer some of the more specific questions relating to other exam boards.

(edited 2 months ago)