RS A-Level Past Papers
This section includes recent A-Level Religious Studies past papers from AQA, Edexcel, Eduqas, OCR and WJEC. If you are not sure which exam board you are studying ask your teacher. Past papers are a fantastic way to prepare for an exam as you can practise the questions in your own time. You can download each of the exam board's papers by clicking the links below.
- AQA A-Level RS Past Papers
- Edexcel A-Level RS Past Papers
- Eduqas A-Level RS Past Papers
- OCR A-Level RS Past Papers
- WJEC A-Level RS Past Papers
The OCR religious studies syllabus (course code H573) is assessed via 3 exam papers:
- Philosophy of religion
- Religion and ethics
- Developments in religious thought
Each of these exam papers is 2 hours long and is worth 120 marks (33.3% of the overall grade). The format of each exam paper is the same: You will have a choice of 4 essay questions and must choose 3 of these to answer.
Philosophy of Religion
- Theory of Forms
- Analogy of the cave
- The four causes
- The prime mover
- Plato vs. Aristotle on the soul
- Substance dualism
- Materialism
- Omnipotence
- Everlasting
- Omnibenevolence
- Teleological arguments
- Cosmological arguments
- Ontological arguments
- The logical problem of evil
- The evidential problem of evil
- St. Augustine: Free will and the Fall
- Hick: Soul-making
- William James: Features of religious experience
- Union with a greater power
- Psychological explanations
- Physiological explanations
- The apophatic way (via negativa)
- The cataphatic way (via positiva)
- The symbolic way
- Logical positivism and verificationism
- Falsification
- Wittgenstein: Form of life
Religion and Ethics
- Four tiers of law
- The precepts
- The four working principles
- The six propositions
- Duty and good will
- The categorical imperative
- The three postulates
- The hedonic calculus
- Act and rule utilitarianism
- Sanctity of life vs. quality of life
- Voluntary and non-voluntary euthanasia
- Corporate social responsibility
- Whistleblowing
- Globalisation
- Premarital and extramarital sex
- Homosexuality
- Intuitionism
- Conscientia
- Vincible and invincible ignorance
- Structure of personality (id, ego, and superego)
- Psychosexual development
Developments in Religious Thought
For this paper, students pick one topic from the following:
Christianity
- Original sin
- God’s grace
- Heaven and hell
- Natural theology
- Revealed theology
- As the son of God
- As a teacher of wisdom
- As a political liberator
- Theonomous approaches (Bible only)
- Heteronomous approaches (Bible, church, and reason)
- Autonomous approaches (reason)
- Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Christian moral action
- Exclusivism
- Inclusivism
- Christian pluralism and society
- Gender and society
- Gender and theology
- Freud’s and Dawkins’ view that God is an illusion and religion is bad for society
- The secular humanist view that religion should not be part of public life
- Liberation theology
- Prophecy and revelation (Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad)
- The oneness of God
- Arguments for God’s existence within the Qur’an
- Interpretation of descriptions of God in the Qur’an
- Human destiny and the meaning of life
- Hadith and Sira
- The Shari’a
- Sunni and Shi’a
- Science and philosophy
- Gender equality
- Justice and liberation
- Islam and the state
- Islam in Europe
- Oral and written law
- Covenant in the Torah
- Maimonides’ 13 Principles of Faith
- Suffering and hope
- Haskalah and emancipation
- The state of Israel and the Biblical promised land
- Jewish feminism
- Post-Holocaust theology
- Chagall: Art as resistance
- Taking refuge
- The six realms of existence (Samsara)
- The three marks of existence (impermanence, suffering, and no self)
- The four noble truths
- Mahayana Buddhism
- Madhyamaka and Prajnaparamita
- Zen Buddhism and Pure Land Buddhism
- Buddhism in the West
- Engaged Buddhism and activism
- Buddhism and gender
- Development of Hinduism and different Hindu traditions
- Hindu scriptures and the role of Holy persons
- Brahman and the self
- Samsara and Karma
- Dharma and Adharma
- Living in accordance with Dharma
- Hinduism as a religion
- Hinduism and India
- Hinduism in the West
- Equality and discrimination
- Social reform
A Level Philosophy & Religious Studies
OCR Religious Studies A level guide & essay Structure
This website is a lot of work, I want to keep most of it available for free, but I’ve decided to put this content behind a paywall of £10. I’ve got a lot of ideas for additions/improvements for the website content and the more people who buy this, the more time I can justify spending on that.
I’ve made a guide for the OCR RS A level which you can purchase here.
This will take you to my shopify webstore where you can buy a downloadable PDF. It will send a download link to your email as well as giving an option to download it straight away. If you can’t find the email check your junk folder.
The guide includes:
General guidance for revision & approaching this A level Advice for how to get different grades Essay structure Signposting Structuring AO1 & Question types Example essay
IMAGES