Tips for A level students. Lesson ramblings for teachers (helpful ideas too!)
Check out this live stream that goes over last minute questions and final tips for the 2022 exam. For access to all Mark With Me’s, Revision Podcasts, Tips from a Tired Teacher and Essay Writing and Exam Support videos join today under Membership (access to over 50 exclusive videos)!
Is it just me or does the Ethics exam seem a long time ago? For many of you this will be your last exam and I am sure by now your brains feel like they have run a marathon (weeks of mental endurance). But we cannot limp to the finish line, we must end on a high! This means one last push for tomorrow’s exam.
Now logically since the advanced information specified four topics, it would make sense to be asked one question from each area, so this is what I have focused on in my predictions.
Knowledge of God- Natural and Revealed Theology:
I am hoping you will be asked “Natural knowledge of God is the same as revealed knowledge of God.” Discuss as this is a really nice question in which you an fully explore all key themes of the topic. However I fear the question might be more specific on God’s Grace, the Fall or use of reason. This one is a hard one to predict but I am guessing the wording of the question might be tricky (it has been in the past).
Person of Jesus:
A number of questions have been asked on this topic over the years but I am leaning towards Jesus’ relationship to God – special, truly unique and Jesus’ awareness of his Divine nature. So a question such as ‘Jesus’ relationship with God was truly unique.’ Discuss or ‘To what extent did Jesus think he was Divine.’ Also make sure you know the Biblical references mentioned on the spec as they might ask a question that specifically mentions one.
Continue reading “DCT 2022 Exam Predictions”I have to admit I haven’t been very impressed with the exam questions so far. Yes they are fair questions (minus the use of the word ‘analyse’ in Aristotle as I have never seen that before in OCR) and the wording of them is generally straight forward (if not a bit long winded in parts) but I feel that the examiners are trying so hard to limit the predictability of the questions they are missing out on a wealth of other topics and questions that would still test the cohort properly. There are so many questions that could be asked, that predicting the questions is slim to none but then to ask the same two topics from last year on the ethics paper (conscience and meta) I think is a bit frustrating.
So once again, with this in mind, prepare yourself for anything! Revise all areas as best as you can (I know there is A LOT for DCT). One thing that is interesting to point out from the first year’s question paper (other than Bonhoeffer making a third appearance – the examiners must be getting bored of marking them!) is the specific question on the biblical story of the Sheep and the Goats. My advice is make sure you know all the biblical stories and references made by the examiners on the spec i.e Ephesians.
So let’s have a look at the questions so far over the years (please see this year’s questions at the bottom of the first column).
It is always a struggle to find R.S related trips and speakers, that would engage a group of teenagers but also be relevant to the spec. When I attended the NATRE 20:20RE conference in Cheshire this October (I highly recommend!!) I went along to a session run by Luke Donnellan who was representing the Humanist Society. As I sat and listened to the array of views, reminiscent of Bertrand Russell, 
Dawkins and Freud, I started to think about the topic of Secularisation in the second year DCT. After speaking with Luke at the end of the session, he pointed me in the direction of the main Humanist website (Humanists UK) and the possibility of arranging a speaker to run a session with my students for FREE. This was sounding better and better…not only would a humanist perspective link to the spec, it would also provide my students with a wider knowledge of different perspectives and challenge their understandings… all for free!
After contacting the head office via the contact details provided on the website, my request was answered within a day with the possibility of a speaker who could travel to Scarborough (we are a bit out on a limb here!) This possibility paid off and within three weeks of attending the 20:20 conference, my students had their questions ready and their notebooks at hand for our Humanist speaker. It really was as easy as that to arrange.
The session was split into two main sections: ‘What is Humanism?’ with Q/A and ‘Does God hate women?’ – a personal interest of our speaker, who knew we were studying gender, feminism and the role of women in the church as well.
Highlights (don’t forget these are the views of our speaker and how he interprets humanism into his life and practices):
Continue reading ““You can’t be religious and a humanist”: Humanism Explored”
The questions you will not be asked Monday afternoon are:
May 2017 First Year Paper:
May 2018 First Year Paper:
This means that a question on each of the areas of the first year spec has been asked. What this means (and following the pattern of the previous two A2 exams) is that there could be two questions on AS and two on A2. This means that the same topic might be asked again, just not the question areas already asked above. I have a feeling you may get asked three Q from A2 because there are so many question areas that could be asked from the second year and the AS has been covered quite efficiently over the last two AS exams.
Difficult to predict this one, so based on my gut feeling (the main thing my gut has been doing over the past few weeks of exams is flip flops!) I think the Q areas are going to be:
I think because the two topics within Pluralism and the two topics within Gender overlap and are very similar ( in that you could easily interchange the information between them) therefore I think any questions on these areas will be quite open (potentially quite vague, hopefully not too obscure like the Philosophy questions).
Tips:
Note: You need to revise all areas. These predictions could be completely wrong, so you do not want to be caught out in your last exam.
Also check out: Predictions for Christian Thought (First and Second Year) and Panic “My Exam is Tomorrow!” Must Read for Christian Thought (1st and 2nd Year)
This is your last opportunity to shine and show the examiners what you have learnt!!
Last year we were all well and truly in the dark when
approaching the first Christian Thought paper. A year on (and maybe a year wiser) we can certainly learn from two areas: the examiners report (see: Examiner’s Report 2017: What can we learn?) and last year’s questions:
Now so far in the first year exams it seems that the areas that were asked last year have been avoided so far this year. OCR are very clever though – they will know this too, which means they might throw a curve ball in and ask the same topic again but a different area.
However going by the pattern so far this means that Augustine, Natural and Revealed Knowledge of God and Moral Principles has not been asked. My gut instinct is that the examiners will not ask a question on both Natural and Revealed and Moral Principles as these are very similar topics (in my view) and both quite dry.
I think if the examiners asked you a question on Natural and Revealed (such as ‘Knowledge of God can only be revealed.’ Discuss – wording would obviously be a little better) and then a question on the Bible (such as ‘The Bible is the only authority for Christian ethical practices.’ Discuss – wanting you to discus the different denominational approaches) I think that would be a really mean paper!
But….your Philosophy and Ethics so far has been pretty nice. My mantra: Prepare for the worse and hope for the best.
Worst case predictions:
Continue reading “Predictions for Christian Thought 2018 (First and Second Year)”