A Level Religious Studies Revision Advice

by Joseph Helsby

Former A Level Religious Studies student, Joseph is in his final year studying History and Philosophy at the University of Birmingham
Posted April 2026

This blog post provides some tips on how best to revise for A Level Religious Studies.

My Experience

I completed my OCR Religious Studies (RS) A- Level in 2022 and have since gone on to study Philosophy as a part of my undergraduate degree. The exam structure consists of three papers, each with three 40-mark questions and lasting two hours. While I found completing practise questions helpful, I also found them to be a daunting and slightly inefficient revision technique when I needed to cover a broad range of topics, from the Ontological Argument to Buddhist nuns. This is not to say that practise questions should be abandoned; however, used alone, they may leave substantial gaps in topic coverage. The following techniques aim to complement practise questions and allow you to cover more ground, while keeping your revision oriented towards exam essay writing. Although this article uses RS as an example, some of these tips may be applicable to a variety of essay-based exams.

Introductions and Conclusions

A technique that I found reassuring, especially when checking my understanding of the basic outline of a topic, involved writing sample introductions for each topic. I wrote out a short introduction and conclusion to one practise question from each topic. There was no need to write out a new introduction for every assessed area of a topic, as the core knowledge would remain the same, perhaps with slightly altered wording and focus. This can be done with notes when you begin revision for a topic, and later without notes to test how much knowledge you have retained. What makes this technique so helpful is that it performs two purposes at once: it is a classic form of active recall, but also acts as practise of exam technique. For me the most nerve-wracking part of my RS exams was starting each new question. Given that each question accounts for just over 10% of your final grade, setting it up correctly is crucial. Therefore, being confident in your introduction technique for each topic can act as a valuable safety net.

Scholarly Bibliography

In RS A-level, it is essential to know your scholars and scripture. These are often the focus of entire questions. For example, in my Philosophy of Religion exam one question was based on Aquinas fifth way (the teleological argument), while another related to St Augustine’s theology. Scholars who appear in questions will clearly appear in your specification guidelines, so that is worth checking carefully. Furthermore, knowledge of scholars and scripture enables you to justify, critique, compare, and evaluate arguments. For instance, citing Richard Dawkins’ critique of Thomas Aquinas’ teleological argument, that evolution is blind and unconscious rather than a product of intelligent design, adds scholarly authority to your evaluation. To keep track of scholars, their arguments, and the topics they could provide relevance to, it can be useful to keep a running bibliography to keep track. This could take the form of a table that includes name, key arguments, and topics they are relevant to.

Name

Arguments

Topics

Richard Dawkins

– Blind Watch Maker

– Evolution

– Cruelty of God’s creations (Digger Wasp)

– Arguments from Observation

– The Challenge of Secularism (Christianity)

J.S. Mill

– Rule Utilitarianism

– Higher and Lower pleasures

– Harm Principle

– Utilitarianism

– Sexual Ethics

– Business Ethics

Additionally, I found it useful to list all the scholars I could remember for each topic the evening before the exam, ensuring that they were fresh in my mind the next day. In the exam itself, I would note all the key scholars I thought relevant at the top of the paper so I wouldn’t forget them.

Counters and Dismissals

Knowing how to counter and dismiss arguments in your answers is a vital component of RS A-level. You need to engage with both sides of the debate and anticipate counter arguments. This is a skill I carried into my undergraduate studies, as Philosophy lectures similarly expected it. However, it is far easier to develop these counters and dismissals without the pressure of the 40 minutes allocated per exam question. Therefore, revising these counters and dismissals in advance is something worthwhile, as it makes writing the essays in the exam feel more automatic, rather than having to engage in challenging philosophical evaluation in the exam. Instead of spending hours compiling a list of counters and dismissals on a difficult-to-memorise document, a mistake I made, a better option that some of my peers utilized involved using flashcards with the argument on the front, and a counter and dismissal on the other side.

Creating Practise Questions

As we know, the past papers on your exam board are the best place to start regarding exam practise. However, often students complete them, and the questions given by their teacher, and are then left feeling stuck. While it is true that your teacher or tutor can most likely provide you with more upon request, it is also true that you are able to formulate your own. The questions follow certain structures. Most of the time they will ask you to evaluate an idea, concept, scholar, or claim. The questions will use various verbs to imply this, such as discuss, evaluate, critically assess. As a result, once you are familiar with the framework, you can craft your own questions easily, by taking any topic or scholar from the specification and inserting it into it. For example, ‘Evaluate how Mill’s harm principle provides a sufficient basis for sexual ethics’ or ‘Critically assess a Kantian approach to Euthanasia.’ By crafting your own questions, you can target your weaknesses. Even if time doesn’t allow for a full answer, producing an essay plan is invaluable. Equally, through creating your own questions it is possible to recreate the unknown of the exam. For instance, a group of friends could swap their questions, creating unique practise exams for each other. As such, this approach allows you to both target weakness and practise for the unpredictability of the final exams.

Closing Thoughts

Ultimately all these techniques have a shared aim: to ensure that content feels familiar and automatic by the time you come to sit the exam. Without having to focus as heavily on essay structure, scholars, and evaluation, you will have more time and mental energy to select a strong argument and answer the question effectively. It becomes less about constructing an essay from scratch, and more about bringing together different elements that you have already prepared, like a performance that you have already rehearsed.