This is a summary of the key points made over the reports from the 2022 and 2023 exam season. I have avoided repeating similar points made in previous years (you will find earlier blogs on these) or question specific comments in order to focus on the points that apply generically across all papers.
Good:
- Exploring the meaning of the words in the question. For example whether a ‘coherent solution’ is being made based on philosophy or science or both.
- Contemporary examples: cost of living crisis, public sector strikes and current government scandals to extend answers.
- Planning at the start of an essay to help with clarity of arguments and points.
- Focused directly on Q.
- Outlined what was going to be argued at the beginning with a hypothesis and reasons that are then argued throughout.
- Carefully selected material.
- Subtleties of the thinkers and/ or theories are appreciated.
Areas to Improve/ Things to Avoid:
General:
- Misunderstood or misread the wording of the question
- If Q asks for one person or argument e.g. Ruether or SOL do not compare or go into great length of another thinker/ idea.
- Adding the question at the end of each paragraph does not mean the paragraph/ essay focuses on the q.
- Chronology of thinkers.
- Lack of timed essay practice.
- Very long introductions.
- Used what seemed like pre prepared responses.
- For compare Q – compare as go along.
A01:
- The A01 was weaker than the A02.
- Trying to force in extra thinkers.
- Minimal explanation of key ideas or assumed understanding of these by marker.
- Lost focus spending too much time discussing other theories.
- Conflating ideas e.g. Mill and Bentham or Prime Mover with First Mover (Aquinas).
- Avoid lengthy description/ anecdotes e.g Freud’s stages, parables and Bible stories
- Do not to simply repeat the bullet points from the spec e.g many other possible descriptions of Jesus exist.
- GCSE type description with a Biblical quote e.g SOL
- Hybrid of Teleo and Cosmo – confusion of what points go into which argument.
A02:
- Strengths and weaknesses within the topic itself with less reliance on comparison with another view or scholar.
- Evaluated by juxtaposition of different views, rather than develop reasons why one was stronger/ weaker.
- Use of rhetorical questions did not add to the evaluation.
I just want to point out one comment made in the 2022 ethics paper that confused me. For the question ‘Assess the view that good, bad, right and wrong are meaningless ethical terms.’ I would assume that this is quite a generic meta ethics question in which you could approach it from any or all angles. However the feedback said, “response entirely on emotivism and considered the arguments for and against this particular theory. These responses often scored very high marks.” I am unsure how this question leads towards an entire emotivism answer and how this did not read as a pre-prepared answer (as often commented on in these reports).
Also check out my previous blog where I discuss my thoughts on the current exam marking based on these examiner’s reports from 2022-2023.