RS GCSE exemplar essays

basically i'm self studying gcse aqa a religious studies Islam (and christianity) so can anyone tell me the links where to find full marks examples of 12 mark and even short 4/5 mark questions
also some of the questions rlly baffle me like i'm muslim and wdym "explain 2 *contrasting* muslim beliefs about God's nature"
like there arent any contrasting beliefs? sunni and shia both believe the same about Allah so what do u want me to write???

Reply 1

permafrostt

@MikaylaLC tagging you bc you replied to one of my posts like a month ago :smile:

(edited 3 weeks ago)

Reply 2

MikaylaLC

Original post

by permafrostt

Hello again!!

Sorry for the late reply, you can find exemplars on the AQA website, here's a link to one that I just found:
https://filestore.aqa.org.uk/resources/rs/AQA-80621-2-EX.PDF

This is for Spec A (Paper 1 and Paper 2 for 2018) and it includes Islam and Christianity example answers - just ignore the questions directed for the other religions.

https://www.aqa.org.uk/subjects/religious-studies/gcse/religious-studies-8062/assessment-resources?secondaryResourceType=Answers+and+commentaries

This is a link to the AQA website - If you look under "Answers and commentaries" there are sample sets from different years with exemplar answers. Hopefully this gives you what you are looking for/need.

In terms of the questions:
Religious Studies is mainly about debating - what I found when studying it at GCSE and A level is that if you are Religious, certain questions may be difficult to navigate due their nature than someone who isn't Religious, as it often involves debating your own beliefs. But its important for you to know that any question that comes up in the exam- has content within the spec that you can learn for it- if that makes sense? They will never ask you a question that you can't answer- its just finding the answer which is the problem.

In the question that you've put - I literally cannot find it anywhere online! Could you let me know what past paper its from (if you know it) so that I can help you with it better?

Just some general tips for the question based on my first thoughts! It is really tricky. You could probably do contrasting beliefs such as Allah being transcendent vs immanent. I know that Allah is both- but technically they are sort of different views? You could do merciful vs Just? To be honest, without the mark scheme I am struggling myself with the question, as there isn't really any contrasting beliefs like you mentioned, and even the ones I suggested are quite weak in terms of explaining (But I am a bit rusty with my knowledge!)

If you can find out what paper/resource it comes from I might be able to help you specifically with this question. But as a general rule to adopt with contrasting beliefs questions is that think of what a critic may say/look at.

I hope this helps, feel free to ask any more questions or give me a few questions that you are particularly struggling to answer.