Before I channel my inner psychic, I have just one word about the Philosophy exam…ANSELM!!! Out of all the questions you could have been asked for Nature of God, you got what I class to be one of the hardest questions. Not only is it a very tricky topic as a whole, Anselm is a very small part of it. What we can learn from this is OCR are still testing and challenging you…we need to be ready tomorrow!

Now my predictions are not particularly accurate (I only got Aristotle’s Prime Mover totally right in the last exam) but I do not share my predictions with you to be correct. I share them with you to give you an idea of what to expect or what to be prepared for. And at least I got the topic areas right. So here goes…

Topic areas for your four questions I think will be: Meta, Conscience, Euthanasia and Sex. I doubt they will double up questions (ask you more than one question on the same topic) but it is possible, so you need to know all topics just in case.

When it comes to Meta Ethics:-

1. There has never been a question on Ethical Naturalism so I think you will either get a question that clearly mentions EN e.g “‘Good’ is best explained through naturalism” or more likely yet “Ethical terms such as good, bad, right and wrong have an objective factual basis that makes them true or false in describing something” – as this question allows you to explore both EN and I.
2. They may also keep the Q more open e.g “What is meant by the word ‘good’ is the defining question in the study of ethics” -which is open to all three approaches.

Conscience is the topic that worries me! Why…because it is an easier topic with only Aquinas and Freud, yet the questions they could ask might be seriously tricky (and after the Anselm Q in Philosophy I think you need to be ready). You might be lucky and get a nice question on either Aquinas or Freud but unfortunately these have both been asked before. It is possible to be set the same question again but you also need to be prepared for a COMPARE q!! The areas that have not been asked are a comparison between Aquinas and Freud on:

1. Guilt,
2. Presence or absence of God,
3. Process of moral decision making.

My money is on one of these three comparison areas, with number three being the nicest.

I think your question on Euthanasia will be a general question and not specify NL or SE such as:

1. “The religious concept of sanctity of life has no meaning in the 21t century.” Discuss
2. A comparison between SOL and QOL
3. “There is no moral difference between medical intervention to end a patient’s life and medical non intervention to end a patient’s life.” Discuss

Each of these questions you could bring in NL and/or SE to develop your evaluation and analysis but you must make sure you stay focused on the specific question throughout and any wider points you bring in, you must make it clear how and why they are relevant to your LOA.

There are a number of questions you could get asked within Sex Ethics. I think they will keep the question open on the theories but specific on the theme (e.g homosexuality, pre or extra). My advice for this one is check out the blog on past questions specifically the gaps (question areas never asked before) for sex ethics and make sure you have enough material to answer those questions.

Good luck to all of you tomorrow! You have worked very hard so this is your opportunity to show off!