S17 E2: The One About GCSE AQA Paper 2

This episode is an introduction to GCSE AQA Religious Studies Paper 2

In this episode we will cover some of the key mistakes pupils make in Paper 2 as it is organised slightly differently from Paper 1, go through some top tips that you will need to get the maximum mark possible and look at the different question styles that you will encounter in your exam to help give you the confidence to know what you need to do in the real paper. 

Sample exam papers;

https://cdn.sanity.io/files/p28bar15/green/d5bcec89967bac72569df625ad4f90c8b8cc6d97.pdf?_gl=1*13sp7lm*_gcl_au*MTI4ODYxMjIzOC4xNzYwNDU5MTI

4 markers

Explain two different beliefs in contemporary British society about abortion. In your answer you should refer to the main religious tradition of Great Britain and one or more other religious traditions.

Some Christians believe that it is wrong because it is ending the life of a human.  

This is because they believe in the sanctity of life which is that all life is sacred. 

A different Christian belief is that it is sometimes necessary for example if the mothers life is at risk.  

This is because they believe that the mothers life is more important than the foetus’ particularly if she has other children

Explain two similar religious beliefs about gender equality. In your answer you must refer to one or more religious traditions.

Most Christians believe that gender equality is important because all humans are equal.  

This is because God made all humans in his image.  

A similar Christian belief is that gender equality is important because God loves all humans equally.  

This is because God is omnibenevolent which means all loving. 

6-markers

THEME E Explain two religious beliefs about forgiveness. Refer to sacred writings or another source of religious belief and teaching in your answer. 

Christians believe that God is forgiving so will forgive criminals for their crime 
This is because Christians believe God is all loving and forgiveness is a loving action 

Christians also believe they should forgive other people who have committed crime against them.
This is because in the Lord’s prayer it is ‘forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us’
This shows Christians that if they are receiving God’s forgiveness, they should then forgive criminals.

THEME C Explain two religious beliefs about miracles. Refer to sacred writings or another source of religious belief and teaching in your answer. 

THEME D Explain two religious beliefs about forgiveness. Refer to sacred writings or another source of religious belief and teaching in your answer. 

12 Marker

Theme C The design argument proves that God exists.’ Evaluate this statement.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

This episode of the Army Podcast is sponsored by Reimagining Education, an organization dedicated to making learning inspiring, relevant, and future focused. Just like this podcast, they're passionate about exploring life's big questions and helping both students and teachers thrive. Find out more at reimaginingeducation.uk. A huge thank you to Reimagining Education for supporting the podcast. Welcome to the RE Podcast, the first dedicated RE podcast for students and teachers. My name is Louisa Jane Smith, and this is the RE Podcast. The podcast for those of you who think RE is boring, which it is, and I'll prove it to you. What I wanted to do is create a series of episodes to help students revise for their GCSE RE exam. This can be used with year 10 or year 11 to revise topics, prepare for mocks, or support revision for the final exams. It might even be helpful for teachers who are new to teaching GCSE RE or need a refresher to give them an overview of the main concepts and exam skills. I'm going to focus on AQA Islam and Christianity as this is the spec I know best, plus it is the one that most people follow. I focused on paper one in the last series and now I will bring in paper two. I want to start with an overview of paper two. It would be really helpful if you have a copy of an actual exam paper in front of you. So if you are a teacher and you are asking your students to use this podcast, please provide them with this. If you are a student, ask your teacher for one or alternatively go onto the AQA website and look for GCSE Religious Studies, Assessment Resources 8062. I've attached two to the blog on my website and there are links in the show notes. Please make sure you choose papers based on the new style of questions for exams 2026. To check this, if there is a two-mark or a five-mark question, this is an old paper. You need to find one with a one-mark question and a six-mark question in it. In this episode, we will start by covering some of the key mistakes pupils make in paper two as it is organised slightly differently from paper one. I will go through some top tips that you will need to get the maximum mark possible and look at the different exam question styles that you will encounter in your exam to help give you the confidence to know what you need to do in the real paper. Then I will do one episode on each theme, not one episode on each topic. This is because there are a lot of topics and each school will teach slightly different things related to each topic. At the end, I will do an episode on synoptic ideas, i.e., ideas are revisited in lots of the different themes like justice or forgiveness. I will also do a focus on key verses from scripture that can be used for lots of the different topics. Just as a reminder, paper two is testing religious, philosophical, and ethical arguments related to particular issues and their impact and influence on the modern world. This will be through the lens of one or two religions plus non-religious worldviews. I am going to focus on Christianity, which everyone has to study and give different opinions from the different traditions within Christianity. However, you may have been taught a second religion, so you can use that religion in most of your answers, but not all, I'll explain later. On the day of your exam, you'll be given two separate booklets, one with the questions in and one to write your answers in. You'll be able to tell which one is which by looking at the front of the paper. Make sure you have a booklet that says GCSE Religious Studies A Paper 2A, Thematic Studies, first exam in June 2026 in front of you. The question paper is separated into six sections, one for each of the six themes. But you only have to do four themes. I repeat, you only have to do four themes. It is so important that the first thing you do in your exam is cross out the two themes that you have not been taught. Every single school will be sent the same booklet, and it is up to the students to choose the four themes they have been taught. The six themes are theme A, Relationships and the Family, Theme B, Religion and Life, Theme C, The Existence of God and Revelation, Theme D, Religion, Peace and Conflict, Theme E, Religion, Crime and Punishment, and Theme F, Religion, Human Rights and Social Justice. Make sure you know exactly which four themes you have been taught. Once you've done that, you might want to come up with a way of remembering the four letters for the four themes you're doing. I tend to teach A, B, D, and E, which are the four most popular. In the mock, many of my students did all six or just did the first four. So I told them if the theme is the first letter of the worst swear words, that is a sign not to do it. So don't do C, don't do F. Or they could come up with a mnemonic, for example, all bears dance every day. A B D E. You might want to do that for the four themes that you are studying to help you to remember it and just to remember, cross out the two themes that you're not doing as soon as you get into that exam for paper two. In total, you will have one hour and 45 minutes, that's 105 minutes, to complete this paper. If you are doing four themes, that means that each theme you do should take you 25 minutes. If you're doing that for all the four themes, that will add up to 100 minutes or one hour and 40 minutes with five minutes left over to check everything. This will be written on the front of the paper. So each section for each theme has five questions in it. So this means you have 25 minutes to do all five questions in each theme. There is a one mark multiple choice question, a one mark short answer question, a four marker, a six marker, and a twelve marker, exactly the same as paper one. So it means it is roughly a mark a minute, but I would try to do question one to four in 10 minutes or less and then leave at least 15 minutes for your 12 marker. When you open your exam paper, you will see that all five questions for each theme is on its own page. You will notice there is no space to write your answers. This is really important as it means all your answers must be written in the answer booklet. This is really important. The question booklet will be thrown away and not marked. So you can make notes in it, but you must not write anything in it that you want marked. Particularly the multiple choice question. Many students answer the multiple choice question in the question booklet by mistake. Do not do this or it will not be marked. I will talk more about the answer booklet later on. So cross out the two themes you are not doing and answer all the questions in the answer booklet, not in the question booklet, not in the question paper. These are two of the most common mistakes students make in paper two. Okay, so you will be writing your answers in the answer booklet. Write the question number in the margin. So 01.1, which is theme A question one, the multiple choice question, and then write your answer. 01.2, 01.3, 01.4, 01.5, and that will be all of the answers for theme A if that's one of the themes you're doing. If you're doing theme B, you will then write 02.1, 02.2, 02.3, 02.4, etc. Once you've written the question number, you can then write your answer. The first question will always be a multiple choice question with four possible answers. To answer this question, simply write the letter that you think is the correct answer. So A, B, C, or D. You do not have to write the actual word answer. I repeat, you do not have to write the actual word answer. So this will save you a small amount of time. All other questions will require written responses, and the weighting of the question should give you an idea of how long your answer should be. So the one marker should be no more than one word, one phrase, or one sentence, and no more. You can ask for more paper, but be mindful not to overwrite because you need to make sure you leave time for all the questions in all the four themes you're doing. The second question on the paper requires a written response. These questions require you to give one simple answer. You do not need to write in detail or explain your answers with additional quotes or examples, but you do need to try and be specific. So try not to be vague and make sure that you're answering the question directly. Try not to write too much, you don't even need to answer in full sentences. This question should take you less than 30 seconds to answer so that you can spend that additional time on your 12 marker. Let's consider two different answers from different students for the same question. And we're going to take a question from theme A. Give one religious belief about the nature of the family, one mark. One student wrote, Christians believe the nature of the family should be heterosexual parents with one or more children. The second student wrote, they are ordained by God. Both students achieved full marks, but you can see that the second student has answered much more concisely and therefore has saved time for them to spend on answering the longer questions on the paper. The first student could have written a man, a woman, and children, or based on the traditional nuclear family, and still have got full marks. Let's move on to the formark questions. In paper two, these are a little bit complicated as there are lots of different types of formark questions that you could be asked. Essentially, these questions are asking you to explain two points in detail. Developing the explanation is key to getting full marks. An easy way to remember this is to use the acronym PEPE, point explain, point explain. So for each of the two points, you should have a clear point and explanation. In the Themes paper, so paper two, these are always explaining similar or different beliefs about a topic on the specification. So it will be asking you to explain two similar beliefs about and then it will name the topic. In order to get four marks for this question, you need to give a really clear belief about the topic it's asking you about, and then develop that belief, and then give a second belief and develop that. If it says similar beliefs, then each belief should be similar. If they say different, then the two beliefs have to be different. Different does not mean opposed or opposite, just different. Most questions will be phrased explain two similar religious beliefs about X. In your answer, you must refer to one or more religious traditions, or explain two different religious beliefs about X. In your answer, you must refer to one or more religious traditions. The other thing you have to watch out for is whether the question says in contemporary British society. And then in your answer, you should refer to the main religious tradition of Great Britain. All this means is that you have to relate it to the modern world, not the past, and you must explicitly talk about Christianity because that is the main religious tradition in Great Britain. This means you can't answer these questions from just your second religion. Not all four mark questions in paper two will be like this, but there is three topics in each theme that will be asked like that. I will go into more detail about what they are in my episode on each theme. But let me show you what it looks like in practice. Let's take a four-mark question from theme B that takes this style. Explain two different beliefs in contemporary British society about abortion. In your answer, you should refer to the main religious tradition of Great Britain and one or more other religious traditions. So we've got to explain two different beliefs. It's in contemporary British society, it's about abortion, and we must mention Christianity. So a model answer to this question could be: some Christians believe that it is wrong because it is ending the life of a human. This is because they believe in the sanctity of life, which is that all life is sacred. A different Christian belief is that it is sometimes necessary, for example, if the mother's life is at risk. This is because Christians believe that the mother's life is more important than the fetus. So you can see two clear, different beliefs. It's wrong because it's ending a life compared to it's sometimes necessary if the mother's life is at risk. Please note that stating the belief on its own won't get you a mark. You have to make a point. So if you just said it's wrong or it's sometimes necessary, you won't get a mark. You have to make a point. It's wrong because or it's necessary when. Also notice that each of these beliefs are fully developed, linking the first point to the sanctity of life and the second point to the belief that the mother's life is more important. And I have clearly mentioned Christianity, the main religious belief in Great Britain, by saying some Christians and then other Christians. And these beliefs are relevant to the modern world. So I haven't said it's wrong because it's illegal, as it's not currently illegal in Great Britain, although it has been in the past. Also, note I haven't said that abortion is right, and this is something I'll talk about in the episode on theme B. Most Christians don't think that abortion is right, they just think it's sometimes necessary. The other type of format question that you might get is explain two similar religious beliefs. So let's have a look at an example of that. So explain two similar religious beliefs about gender equality. In your answer, you must refer to one or more religious traditions. So this question could be from theme A or theme F. This one isn't asking you about different beliefs. They have to be similar. It doesn't matter which religion you mention, and it doesn't have to be in the contemporary world. You can use the same structure, so P E P E, as it's still a four-mark question. When you see the word similar here, what is expected of you is to make sure that your two points are similar but not the same. So I would suggest two reasons why someone might disagree with something or two reasons why they would agree. So here is a model answer. Most Christians believe that gender equality is important because all humans are equal. This is because God made all humans in his image. A similar Christian belief is that gender equality is important because God loves all humans equally. This is because God is omnibenevolent, which means all loving. Notice that the beliefs are the same, gender equality is important, but the reason is different, therefore the development is different. This makes the answer similar. Same belief but different reasons. Notice I've also clearly linked the belief to a religion by saying most Christians. If you start all your four markers with this phrase, you can't go wrong. The six mark questions are thankfully exactly the same as in paper one. They require the same level of explanation and development as with your four markers, but you get an additional fifth mark in this question by including a relevant quote. Note that you have to source your quote, i.e. say where the quote comes from, for example, in the Bible or in the Quran. And for the sixth mark, you have to apply the quote to the question. So just explain what the quote means. So you could use the acronym P E P E S A, point explain, point explain, source of quote apply, or PESA, P E, point explain, source apply, point explain. Or even SAPEPE. So source, apply, point explain, point explain. It doesn't matter where you add the quote and application as long as it's relevant to the point you're linking it to. So let's look at an example question from theme E. Explain two religious beliefs about forgiveness. Refer to sacred writings or another source of religious belief and teaching in your answer. And what I want you to do is I want you to guess how many marks you think this answer would get. Christians believe that God is forgiving. This is because Christians believe God is all loving. Christians also believe they should forgive others. Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. So what mark do you think this would get? So this would get two out of six. So the first two sentences, Christians believe that God is forgiving. This is because Christians believe God is all loving, would only get one mark because it is a simple point about forgiveness. They haven't linked it specifically to theme E, which is crime and punishment. So you have to link it to the theme in order to get marks. This is just a simple explanation related to forgiveness generally. So they would have to have said, therefore, Christians should forgive criminals. The second bit, Christians also believe they should forgive others, forgive us our sins as we forgive those against us, is still only a simple explanation. That they should forgive others and then they have put the quote. They've not developed the point enough, they do not have a source of the quote, and they have not applied it or linked it to theme E specifically. So this is something to be really aware of. Let's look at a model answer to the same question using the same basic information as the previous answer. Christians believe that God is forgiving, so will forgive criminals for their crime. So that would give one mark for a simple explanation. This is because Christians believe God is all loving and forgiveness is a loving action. Second mark for a developed explanation. So this would get two marks because it's a developed point about forgiveness. It's explicitly mentioned the religion by saying Christians believe and it is linked to theme E. Christians also believe they should forgive other people who have committed crimes against them. This is because in the Lord Prayer it says, forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. This shows Christians that if they are receiving God's forgiveness, they should then forgive criminals. This second point would get another four marks because there is a second developed point about forgiveness. The development is also a quote with the source, the Lord's Prayer is a source of authority for Christians. Then the quote has been applied to the question. Also, it is clearly linked to theme E. If the same question was in theme D, which it could be, you would have to link it to peace and conflict to get full marks. Remember, whenever you're doing a six-mark question, develop each point, make sure you include a quote, make sure you clearly state where that quote comes from, and apply the quote to the question. You only need one quote in your whole answer. And if you can't remember the exact words of the quote, don't worry, you can paraphrase it. But if you paraphrase it, don't put it in quote marks. Because if you put it in quote marks, you are telling the examiner that this quote is the exact quote from the Bible. If you are summarising it in your own words and it is not a direct quote, it can still be credited if you don't put it in quote marks, as long as the source is there. Maybe you could have a go at one of the following six markers. So from theme C, explain two religious beliefs about miracles, refer to sacred writing or another source of religious belief and teaching in your answer, or try and do the forgiveness one but link it to theme D instead of theme E. Finally, the last and biggest question in each section of your exam is a 12 mark question. Here, the examiners are testing your ability to create an argument. So we Are no longer just demonstrating our knowledge and understanding or our ability to explain religious beliefs about a theme. What we have to do here is make arguments in support or different arguments in response to a statement, and then formulate conclusion with a clear judgment at the end. There is no one perfect way to answer 12-mark questions that can guarantee you 12 out of 12, but you should aim for around three to five paragraphs, one or two develop points with evidence to support the statement, and then one or two develop points with evidence to argue for a different point of view in response to the statement. Then your conclusion, which needs to come to a justified judgment, not another opinion or your opinion. The order that you do these are up to you. For example, you could do one or two agrees followed by one or two different points of view, or you could do one or two different points of view followed by two agree points. Whatever order makes sense to you to help you form a logical argument. You also need to remember that this is a religious studies exam, and if you don't include religious teachings, religious beliefs, or religious practices to support your argument, you will only get a maximum of six out of twelve marks. Making sure you've got lots of religious evidence and examples is going to help build up those marks. This is particularly important in paper two because these are often about topics which relate to non-religious arguments too. And sometimes teachers forget to give clear religious teachings on each theme. However, you do get marks for non-religious views in paper two, you don't in paper one, but you still only get a maximum of six out of twelve if you don't mention religion. Also, you have to be very careful to read the wording of the question. If it specifically mentions religious views, you can only write about religious views. However, sometimes it doesn't specifically mention religion in the statement, in which case you must include religious views, but you can include non-religious views. Let me give you an example to help you understand. In theme F, a 12-mark question might be: it is always right to give charity to those living in poverty. This does not mention religion, so you have permission to use non-religious views. So you could talk about human rights or humanist ideas of compassion. However, you must talk about religious views. Here is why. Underneath the statement, you have a series of bullet points that tells you exactly what you need to include in your answer to get full marks. So if you've got a paper in front of you, turn to any of the 12 markers and you'll see the following bullet points. It will have the statement, then it will say evaluate this statement. In your answer, you, bullet point one, should give reasoned arguments in support of this statement. Bullet point two should give reasoned arguments to support a different point of view. Bullet point three should refer to religious arguments. Bullet point four may refer to non-religious arguments. Bullet point five should reach a justified conclusion. Notice that there are some things you should do, so give different points of view, refer to religious arguments, reach a justified conclusion, but it says may refer to non-religious arguments. This means you can get full marks without non-religious views, but you can't get full marks without religious views. Also notice that it says evaluate this statement and reach a justified conclusion. This means you are writing to persuade, so you need to use argumentative language. And you can use what you know from English language and English literature in your religious studies exam. Don't just explain different reasons for and different reasons against. At the end, you need to end your answer with a clear judgment. You need to have a think about which argument is the strongest or the most reasonable or the most convincing. You must say which argument you think is stronger or justify why they are equally strong or equally weak. Read the question very carefully. Look at what it's asking and make sure that every point that you write directly answers the specific aspect of the question. An effective way of doing this is to use the wording of the question in your answer. A helpful thing to do is to break the question down by doing something that we call bug the question. So the B stands for box. So the first thing you need to do is box the command word, which in 12 marker questions will always be evaluate. They are always going to ask you to evaluate a statement. This means you have to decide how true that statement is by weighing up the evidence. The U is for underline. This means that you have to underline the key parts of the statement. G is for go back and check. So this means that you have to go back and check that you have answered the actual question and responded to the statement written. Let's take the 12 marker. All religious believers should be pacifists and never fight. Evaluate this statement. So we are going to box evaluate, as this is our command word. Then we need to underline the key parts of the statement. The main topic is pacifists, but you should also underline all, as this is what you are being asked to evaluate. You also need to notice that it says religious believers, so you should underline that. That means that you cannot use non-religious views. So you are going to evaluate whether all religious believers should be pacifists and never fight, or whether there are times when religious believers should fight, and then you should come to a conclusion about which, if any, is the most convincing argument. As you write your answer, you will need to go back to this question and check you are answering it. You can use the bug method in other subjects as well, not just religious studies. The other method is to turn the statement into a question. So all religious believers should be pacifists and never fight becomes the question, should all religious believers be pacifists and never fight? And then argue yes they should or no they shouldn't. Note, it doesn't ask why religious believers are pacifists, but whether all religious believers should be pacifists. Let's have a look at a different 12 marker, and this time from theme C. The design argument proves that God exists, evaluate this statement. If you are able, stop the episode, write down the statement, and start to break down the question using the bug method. The design argument proves that God exists. Evaluate this statement. If you are not able to do this, we're going to do it together now. But if you are able to stop and complete it independently first, you can compare what you do to what I do. So we're going to box the word evaluate. This is our command word. We are then going to underline design argument, proves, and God exists. So we need to talk about the design argument and how it proves God exists, explaining the watch analogy, and look at the strengths and weaknesses of this as an argument. For example, that it's based on the teachings of the Bible, the creation story in Genesis, as well as in Romans 1, where it says that nature proves the existence of God. We could also say that it uses empirical evidence as it's based on what we can experience around us. Plus, we can give examples of things that are well designed, like gravity. However, we would then look at other explanations of design, i.e. evolution, the fact that some things are badly designed, linking to the problem of evil, and then we can look at the problems with proving that it is God that designed this. Remember, we want to make sure that we are weighing the evidence up properly and not just writing about what the design argument is. We have to focus on whether or not it proves God's existence. Don't fall into the mistake of comparing this argument to other arguments for the existence of God, like the cosmological argument. The statement doesn't ask for that. If it said the design argument is the best proof for the existence of God, then you could compare it to the other proofs. But this statement asks you to evaluate whether it does prove God. Remember, you have to come to a conclusion. Do the strengths of the argument outweigh the weaknesses and therefore make it successful at proving the existence of God? Or do the weaknesses outweigh the strengths, means it is not successful in proving the existence of God. So we need to evaluate whether the design argument proves God. We have argued in our answer that in some ways it does, as the argument is convincing, but in other ways it doesn't, as there are flaws in the argument. It's really important that you come to a conclusion. In the conclusion, you have to make a well-justified judgment. So using language like, it is clear to see that, or it is the strongest argument because, or it could be concluded that this argument is not a convincing argument for the existence of God. So somewhere in that conclusion, you have to make a clear judgment and explain why. You can't just give a simple sentence and expect that to be enough. If you are aiming for a top mark, a great technique is to do what we call questioning the question. For example, if we look at the design argument question, the design argument proves that God exists, a great response to that could be to say that there should be no proof for the existence of God, questioning the question, challenging the idea that there should be ultimate proof. What you could say is that if God was proved, there would be no need for faith, and faith is important. Some of you might have learnt about epistemic distance, that God purposely doesn't prove himself, but is close enough that you can find proof if you want to. And that comes down to free will. That would be an excellent judgment that you could make at the end of this question. Let's look at an example of a conclusion that does just that. The design argument proves that God exists, evaluate the statement, imagine that they've written the answer and this is the conclusion that the student has written, and they've said. To summarize, though many agree that the design argument does provide proof that God exists, it cannot be proof for everyone. If this was the case, then everyone in the world would be a theist. Christians believe God gave us free will, and if there was undeniable proof that God existed, then this would take away free will. Since freedom is an expression of love, God has to give us a choice as to whether we believe. He should not force us to believe by making his existence provable. As such, the design argument provides proof that God exists to those who want to believe it, but not to everyone. Throughout your essay, try to make value statements as you go along, rather than just saying this is a strong argument or this is a weak argument because. Instead, you could use sentences that link your paragraph together and use some evaluative language to persuade the examiner a little bit more. For example, you could say, this overshadows the previous argument because, or this outweighs my previous argument because, or this is a more logical or reasonable argument because. I used the sale method, so each letter in the word sale stands for something that you could use to judge how convincing an argument is. S stands for supported by most people. A stands for authority, so an argument which is supported by religious authorities like a holy book or key religious person. L stands for logical, so which argument makes the most sense. E can stand for evidence, so which argument is supported by the most evidence, or ethical, so which argument might lead to the most ethical actions. For example, you could say that the design argument is strong proof for the existence of God because there is evidence to support design. Or you could say that the design argument is a weak proof for the existence of God, as there is evidence there is an evil or flawed designer as nature causes suffering. Maybe using evidence from your understanding of the problem of evil in Christian beliefs. Or you could say that logically the design argument only proves there is a designer. It doesn't prove who or what the designer is, so it's a weak argument. Or you could say logically the designer would have to be an all-powerful, all-loving God, therefore the design argument does prove the existence of God. Explaining things in a way that weighs up an argument rather than just saying everything is a strong or a weak argument helps move away from comparing two different points of view and much more towards that evaluation. Those kinds of paragraphs with this kind of language is far more likely to get you those higher marks. So next time you sit down to practice a 12-mark question, see if you can use some of these sentences. Or you could go back over some 12-mark answers that you've already written and see if you can improve them by including some more evaluative language as a revision task. Finally, to summarize everything I've said, be responsible and disciplined on timing, keep an eye on the clock, and manage moving from one question to the next. Use the marks that each question is worth as a guide for how much you should write, especially on the one, four, and six mark questions. Write concisely so that you can save more time to spend on the 12 mark questions. Read the question carefully. This will be true of all your exams, but you'll be surprised how many people in the stress of an exam misread questions. Read the question carefully, particularly those 12 markers, really focusing on what it's asking you to do. Don't just pick out one word and write in relation to that one word. You have to understand the nuance of the question. Remember to use direct quotes or paraphrasing if you can't remember them exactly, but don't forget to mention the source where the quote or teaching comes from. Remember in your 12 markers to weigh up the arguments and form a nice judgment. Remember to use as many religious arguments as you can in your 12 marker, and only use religious arguments if the question asks for that. I hope this has given you a good overview of paper two, what the paper will look like, structure, timing, and how to answer the questions. Next episode, we will be doing a deeper dive into some of the core content you need for theme A, as well as how to answer specific questions on that topic. This podcast is supported by ReimaginingEducation at reimaginingeducation.uk. My name is Louisa Jane Smith, and this is the RE podcast. The podcast, for those of you who think RE, is boring, which it might be, but it's a great subject to get a GCSE in, as it's useful for law, medicine, sales, advertising, media, in fact, you name it. It also teaches critical thinking, and this is a necessary skill to take to college, university, and into any job. But thank you so much for listening to me bore the life out of you.