GCE Religious Studies RST3B Philosophy of Religion Report on the Examination 2060 June 2013 Version: 1.0
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General comments The majority of the students were well prepared for the examination. There was good evidence of the students having read around the topics under consideration and being able to make full use of the different approaches and opinions expressed by scholars. Most answers were in fluent English and avoided using template approaches to answers. Many students produced good evaluation in the second of the two questions under each topic. One serious weakness with some students was their insistence on incorporating evaluation material in the first (AO1) question. The AO1 questions are about the selection and demonstration of clear knowledge and understanding of the relevant material to respond to the question. There are no marks for any evaluation in these questions. However, with the second (AO2) questions, evaluation is essential and without it students will not gain good marks. It was slightly frustrating for the examiners to read a lot of irrelevant evaluation in AO1 answers and then to discover that the student had not used this relevant material in the AO2 answer where high marks could have been achieved. Examiners are not allowed to transfer marks of material from one answer to another; they can only mark what the students have actually written in answer to the specific question. A common issue was for students to mistime their essays so the last question is rushed and weak. This usually means that the total mark is less than the student s ability would suggest. It is rare that the time spent developing an already good answer will gain enough extra marks to outweigh the marks lost through a rushed last question. Most students made good use of quotations and scholarly ideas. However, students should avoid the temptation to invent quotes and ascribe them to a known authority or holy text, as the examiners know the material very well. Equally, students need to be clear about the approaches of central philosophers as sometimes answers can be destroyed by presenting the wrong idea for a particular thinker. The comparative dating of philosophers is also important, even though students will not be penalised for getting a thinker s dates wrong. There were occasions when the impression was given that Aristotle, Descartes and Aquinas were near contemporaries (often in that order). Major errors like this often indicate a lack of understanding of the issue under discussion. There were few rubric errors between the questions this year although some students failed to complete the required number of questions. Question 1 Ontological argument and the relationship between reason and faith 01 Many students were able to show good understanding of the area under consideration. However, many of them failed to notice the wording of the question. The command words are specifically chosen to reflect the weighting of the marks. Students were asked to outline two key objections and explain the responses made to them. Most students gave detailed explanations of the objections and a very superficial account of responses made to the objections. This meant that marks could not be awarded at the upper levels for many students. There were two other areas of this question that some students ignored. They were only asked to refer to two of the objections. There are three main objections in the specification: the definition of God; existence as a predicate; deriving existential claims from a definition. Each of these objections can include different scholars and their ideas and it was accepted that different 3 of 6
approaches to one objection still count as one objection. However, some students covered all three objections and even included others that were not mentioned in the specification. Non-specification material is acceptable where relevant. However, students are only rewarded for material that deals with two objections. When presenting the responses, many students only gave a superficial coverage. It was common for students to simply refer to two responses in defence of the ontological argument without making any connection to the objections that they had previously outlined. These responses did not really answer the question so did not score highly. Sometimes the links made were implicit and some consideration was awarded. However students must recognise that the markers cannot create links in the material presented unless these are clearly indicated. 02 The focus of this question was on the unconvincing nature of the objections, not that of the ontological argument itself. There was inevitably, and rightly, some comparison with the validity of the ontological argument and many students correctly included comments about the failure of the objections to recognise the nature of Anselm s argument as a prayer. There was no requirement for the students to limit themselves to the specific objections they had dealt with in 01, though many students took this approach. An approach that covered the objections in a generalised way was perfectly acceptable, as long as the central issue was the unconvincing nature (or otherwise) of the objections. Question 2 Religious language 03 Many students seemed very comfortable with this question and were able to produce answers that showed detailed understanding of the topics. The better answers showed how there were obvious connections between the verification principle, bliks and eschatological verification in the context of religious language. There were some students who produced good responses to two of the areas but obviously were unsure about the third area. These students were able to gain to the top of Level 5 and often were able to give some correct information about the third area that allowed them to just reach Level 6. There were areas of weakness within each of the topics. Many students were able to explain the background to the verification principle, including Ayre s development of it. Some students claimed that Ayre accepted that religious language in almost all its forms had meaning through the weak verification approach. Ayre states Metaphysical statements, in my sense of the term, are excluded (Language, Truth and Logic page 182). However, there was only a limited explanation, if any, of what the verification principle meant for religious language. Sometimes a sentence was tagged on at the end about religious language, but this did not do justice to the issue. Many students referred to Hare s analogy of the university dons when dealing with bliks but often the details were confused which meant that they did not fully understand how language reflected the world-view of the individual and how even religious language was meaningful for the person who expressed it. Eschatological verification was probably the weakest area of this question. While many students used Hick s analogy of the two travellers to the celestial city, not many seemed to understand the implications of this approach. Because religious language is weakly verifiable in this manner, therefore it has meaning even now. 04 Many students produced thoughtful arguments in response to this question. Some continued with the idea of bliks and how these might affect the, meaningfulness of talk about God for non-believers, including comments that their blik was atheism. Most students brought in material about Wittgenstein s language games but correctly questioned how narrowly people used any form of language. Strong answers also made reference to analogies and symbols and questioned to what extent non-believers could appreciate the things being referred to. There 4 of 6
was a lot of good critical analysis about these areas, with the better answers selecting a few areas to examine in depth rather than covering all the possible approaches. Question 3 Body, soul and personal identity 05 On the whole, this question produced the weakest answers on the paper, though there were a number of superb answers that clearly focused on the question. There were three areas that needed to be included: personal identity, resurrection and reincarnation. However the pervasive idea was personal morality. Students who simply explained what was meant by resurrection and reincarnation failed to achieve high marks as the question clearly asked them to examine how views of personal identity were expressed in these ideas about the afterlife. Resurrection and judgement raise issues about the survival of the individual: is the body involved? Can a person exist on their entirety simply as a spirit? How does the material in the Bible or the Qur an, for example, support these issues? When dealing with reincarnation there could be coverage of how an individual can survive in a different body, what is the role of karma, how important is the idea of individuality in the concept of moksha. Good answers included this type of material and showed good understanding of the contrasting issues from the two ideas. Many answers tended to be stronger on one of reincarnation or resurrection than the other, but most of these students managed to gain some credit on their weaker topic. The question clearly asked about resurrection and reincarnation, so any material that dealt with rebirth was not valid for this essay. 06 While the central issue of this question was the existence of the soul, this was to be dealt with in the context of resurrection and reincarnation. A number of students simply presented material about near-death experiences, which was not relevant. The question did not ask about proof for the soul but justification for believing in the existence of a soul. Inevitably, the material covered has to be theoretical because of the nature of the topic but good answers raised questions about what survives after death in resurrection if the body is rotting or what is the link between the two people who are claimed to have been involved in the reincarnation experience? Students need to ensure they answer the set question, not simply present material they had prepared earlier. Question 4 The problem of evil 07 Many students had a good understanding of the theodicies of the Augustinian tradition, including reference to Aquinas and Calvin in their answers. While some credit was given to the free-will approach in so far that it follows on from the Augustinian tradition, no credit was given for material that dealt with the Irenaean tradition. The area of weakness for some students was in their reading of the question. The command word was Explain, so some development was needed, not simply a list of different ideas. The stronger answers showed how different ideas within the Augustinian tradition, especially from Augustine himself, were linked together and made a coherent argument. Some students included a lot of AO2 material in this AO1 question that could not be credited. 08 Many students performed well on this question, in particular making reference to the logical, scientific and moral issues raised by the Augustinian approach. The question explicitly asks the students to examine the strengths and weaknesses of the Augustinian tradition. The question does not ask for a comparison with other approaches, so references to the Irenaean tradition 5 of 6
were not relevant. It must be admitted that few students were able to support the Augustinian approach overall but many recognised the internal logic of the argument, even when they rejected it. Mark Ranges and Award of Grades Grade boundaries and cumulative percentage grades are available on the Results Statistics page of the AQA Website. Converting Marks into UMS marks Convert raw marks into Uniform Mark Scale (UMS) marks by using the link below. UMS conversion calculator www.aqa.org.uk/umsconversion 6 of 6