Here are some model A Level essays, written for the new OCR specification.

The essays are all out of 40 marks (16 AO1 and 24 Ao2) and written with A Level notes, using my standard A Level plan (below), in 4o minutes… the amount of time you will have in the final examination.

Obviously enough, these answers represent one possible approach and are only intended to give students an idea of what a reasonable answer might look like.  There are other approaches that would be equally good or better. 

PLANNING

“Fail to plan and you are planning to fail…”

Although the exams won’t allow for a lot of planning time, spending significant time planning through the course is essential because it trains your mind, helping you to absorb and understand what a good essay feels like.  I always say that in a weekly essay it is much better to spend over an hour planning and then limit writing to 40 minutes than to write for 2 hours without a plan!  An unplanned essay, however detailed, is pretty useless because the only thing you have done is to write out your notes in a different way.

Planning an essay forces you to analyse, assess and evaluate the content of the topic, develop and then defend an opinion on it.  This takes you well beyond where you can get in class and is one of the only opportunities you have to give your brain a real work-out. 

I always recommend that students use an assertive approach in A Level essays, putting a THESIS up front (after a relatively short exposition of the question and topic at hand ) using body paragraphs to support their thesis with clear reasons – including evaluated and rejected counter-claims – thus forming a strong and persuasive argument and earning the 60% of the marks that depend on this.

I think that the traditional A01 led approach – where students explain the topic, point by point, evaluating only if they remember at the end of each paragraph and leaving the argument to the conclusion – is a disaster for the new A Level because it will probably cap students around the bottom B level, maybe 28 out of 40.

Students who have not committed their line of argument to paper in paragraph 1 will often not decide what they are arguing until the conclusion, and will therefore fail to argue anything through the body of the essay.

Also, leaving 60% of the marks to the last paragraph when students will be under severe time-pressure and stress, seems unwise.

The upshot of the traditional essay-plan is that if students do not finish they could end up getting 14/40 for a detailed and fluent essay which contains no argument, getting an E rather than an A.  This is a very big price to pay for poor time-management in a 2 year linear exam!
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Religious Studies Practice Questions

What would a good essay look like then?

Introduction: What is the question asking?  Identify / briefly explain the topic, identify important issues and key words.  Finish with a THESIS, a clear statement of what your argument (answer) will be, ideally not using the personal pronoun “I” or the hackneyed “this essay will argue…”

Paragraph 1: Your first / strongest reason in support of your argument. State it in your first sentence (POINT), then explain it using plenty of examples and references to scholars (EVIDENCE) and finally relate it back to the Thesis, showing how it relates to your ARGUMENT and LINKS to your reasoning.

Paragraph 2: Your second / next strongest reason in support of your argument. State it in your first sentence (POINT), then explain it using plenty of examples and references to scholars (EVIDENCE) and finally relate it back to the Thesis, showing how it relates to your ARGUMENT and LINKS to your reasoning.

Paragraph 3: Another reason in support of your argument. State it in your first sentence (POINT), then explain it using plenty of examples and references to scholars (EVIDENCE) and finally relate it back to the Thesis, showing how it relates to your ARGUMENT and LINKS to your reasoning.

COUNTERCLAIM: Who would disagree with your argument?  Why? Explain their objection using examples and references to scholars etc. EVALUATE their objection, concluding that you do not accept it because… LINK back to your Thesis.

COUNTERCLAIM 2: Who else would disagree with your argument?  Why? Explain their objection using examples and references to scholars etc. EVALUATE their objection, concluding that you do not accept it because… LINK back to your Thesis.

Conclusion: Repeat your Thesis and list your main points in support.  Acknowledge any limitations or weaknesses that your argument has and/or what might force you to change this conclusion.

USING PARAGRAPHS

Note how each paragraph shares a similar STRUCTURE – it contains a POINT, some EXPLANATION, EVIDENCE and a LINK to the argument.  Think PEEL.

A paragraph is not just aesthetic and does not just break-up a block of text making it look better, it is a unit of your argument which helps to make sense of it.  Think of each paragraph as a separate slide in a PowerPoint or a separate bullet-point in a plan.  A paragraph must be self-contained and make sense in its own terms as well as fitting neatly into your essay structure.

TIP: It is worth practicing writing paragraphs separately, drafting and re-drafting them to improve your clarity and style. This can be a really good way of making notes, one which gets you evaluating and thinking about how you would use information to argue a case.