Understanding the Examiner’s Mark Scheme:
Essay Tips:
5 Minute Pop Summaries:
Continue reading “RS Revision Support Videos”Category: Philosophy and Ethics: R.S
RS Exam Support 2023
Powerpoint of Past Exam Questions:
Teach-Along of Past Exam Questions (what to notice in the wording of the questions):
Powerpoint of Gaps and Possible Questions:
Teach-Along of Gaps and Possible Questions (what questions to be ready for in your upcoming exams):
*Upcoming powerpoint and video…Predictions 2023*
Live Streams for last minute exam support:
Continue reading “RS Exam Support 2023”RS Revision Resources
First Year Revision Pack Bundle (Philosophy, Ethics and DCT):
Second Year Revision Pack Bundle (Philosophy, Ethics and DCT):
Assess to individual revision packs, homework packs (activities for deeper understanding), key knowledge exams (test knowledge) and more here:
Essay Writing Technique Support:
Latest YouTube Uploads
Last Minute 2023 Exam Support: DCT (OCR)
I will go over last minute pointers and answer any questions you might have 🙂
Last Minute 2023 Exam Support: DCT (OCR)
I will go over last minute pointers and answer any questions you might ...
Last Minute 2023 Exam Support: Ethics (OCR)
I will go over last minute pointers and answer any questions you might ...
Last Minute 2023 Exam Support: Philosophy (OCR)
I will go over last minute pointers and answer any questions you might ...
Unit Four: Last Minute Exam Tips PowerPoint
This power point goes through last minute pointers to support your ...
Unit Two: Last Minute Exam Tips PowerPoint
This power point goes through last minute pointers to support your ...
Criminology Unit Four Past Questions and Gaps 2023 PowerPoint
This power point goes through all the past questions asked in the WJEC ...
1
of 44
Revision Live Streams
I will be doing a number of last minute support Q/A and top tips livestreams. Here is the timetable of events:
8th June
6.00pm Philosophy https://youtu.be/5yyeihSJE9c
7.00pm Criminology Unit Four https://youtu.be/EDEeey9JEWs
13th June
6.00pm Ethics https://youtu.be/TZN2Wzxrhxo
20th June
6.00pm DCT https://youtu.be/UTyT1URYWfQ
Exam 2022: Examiner Report Summaries (2017-2020)
We can learn a lot from previous exam feedback such as patterns, gaps and common mistakes. I could not recommend studying the examiner’s reports enough, as they are practically the mind of the examiner directly instructing students what to do and what to avoid. If you then go into your exams and make one of those mistakes (which have been highlighted previously) well that’s just silly and unprepared. So this blog summary, taken from previous blog posts, has all the relevant information for the 2022 exam in one place.
General comments (2017-2020):
Good points:
- Evaluation throughout
- Focus directly on question not general topic
- Outlined line of argument at the beginning (often in introduction) and followed this throughout answer (AO2 driven). Those that added evaluation near end of each paragraph often did not score into higher brackets.
- Relevant material used
- Showed knowledge from other topics (synoptic links) suggesting an understanding of the holistic nature of the A level.
Bad points:
- Lack of focus on exact wording of the Q
- Long introductions, summaries better left until the end
- Most of essay spent on A01 with A02 added at the end – resulting in insufficient depth
- Write everything I know on that topic (pre prepared formulaic answers)
- Evaluate through juxtaposition of different views. In other words, putting one name against another name and thinking this is evaluation. You need to say which view is stronger/ more convincing etc.
- Lack of planning leading to long rambling answers- paragraphs are your friend!
- Few students showed signs of having undertaken research.
Specific Comments
Philosophy:
| Philosophy | Good points | Bad points |
| Critically discuss Aristotle’s understanding of reality. (2018 First Year only) | Very good accounts of Aristotle’s empiricism, explanation of four causes and prime mover (who draws things to him in a disinterested manner). Used Plato in an evaluative way in relation to Aristotle scored higher bands. | Confusion between efficient and formal causes (note: this has been an issue throughout the legacy papers as well). Wrote all they knew about Plato and only compared with Aristotle in the final paragraph. |
| To what extent does Hume successfully argue that observation does not prove the existence of God? (2018) | Variety of Hume’s criticisms, relating them to succinct summaries of the Teleo and Cosmo arguments. (Satisfactory answers wrote copious amounts of descriptions for Aquinas and Paley, leaving little room for Hume). Darwin and Tennent’s anthropic principle when used in relation to Hume. Analysed Hume’s criticisms, weighing up how successful they are. | Juxtaposing alternatives such as Big Bang without justify any reasoning as to why applying them. Accepting points without question such as Hume’s Epicurean thesis. |
| Assess Boethius’ view that divine eternity does not limit human free will. (2019) | Explain in detail Boethius’ reasoning including simple and conditional necessity. Effective use of Aquinas’ lofty peak and comparisons to Swinburne’s everlasting ideas. | Least popular and least well done- insufficient knowledge of key theory. Some compared to Anselm’s four dimmensionalist approach but didn’t understand how his views of eternity meant that all moments were in God equally and so God is with us in the moment of choice. Linked divine eternity to the afterlife or concentrated too heavily on FW. PoE was discussed but only credited when tied to Q. Debate surrounding God’s other attributes: omnipotence, punish/ reward and omniscience. |
| Critically compare the logical and evidential aspects of the problem of evil as challenges to belief. (2019) | Focus on the critically compare. Explored how Augustine’s privatio boni defeated the logical problem by removing ‘evil’ from the Inconsistent Triad (very clever!). Explored how Hick’s vale of soul making accounted for the scale of evidential evil. Compared the ‘a priori’ nature of logical with ‘a posteriori’ nature of evidential. Discussion of God’s attributes and FW (synoptic links to Nature of God). | Unprepared for this question. Inconsistent Triad not linked to Q. Some students thought the theodicies where the evidential problem of evil. |
| Analyse Aristotle’s four causes (2019). | More interesting responses used own examples to show four causes. Discussion around Aristotle’s empirical approach/ reliance on senses/ a posteriori knowledge vs Plato’s rational a priori approach. This was then evaluated by linking to whether Aristotle was successful in explaining the main parts of his argument: potentiality, PM, change and movement etc. Fallacy of Composition used effectively against Aristotle, whether humans do have an innate purpose (Sartre) and evolution as a challenge to purpose. | Confusing the four causes or not knowing and understanding the formal cause. Confusing the views of Aristotle and Aquinas’ three ways. |
| “The world was created by chance, not by God’s design.” Discuss (2019) | Aquinas, Paley and Tennant used well, as well as Hume’s Epicurean Hypothesis as an alternative to chance. Dawkins’ blind watch maker was used to demonstrate chance and no foresight with Tennant’s aesthetic as a counter argument. Big bang, red shift and evolution used well to support chance. Kant was used well by some, as well as Douglas Adam’s conscious puddle and Mill on POE. | Confusion over teleological and cosmological with some even drawing upon Ontological argument too. Over simplistic use of Paley’s watch Overuse of Ockham’s razor which did not add to their argument. |
Ethics:
Continue reading “Exam 2022: Examiner Report Summaries (2017-2020)”