The 3-step active recall method

Re-reading notes is a futile process when your aim is to remember the information and successfully apply it in exam settings. Active recall is the method you use to ensure the information sticks for a long period of time.

But even active recall can be futile unless you have a structured way of implementing it. This is where the 3-step active recall method comes in, a structured method that is signature to the Levo Learning guides.

1. Step 1

   Answer up to 10 questions cold, closed book, even if you are unsure on the topic.

2. Step 2

   Answer the same questions again, but open book. Write the correct answer down even if it seems pointless.

3. Step 3

   Repeat as step 1 and answer the questions closed book again.

Worked across the OCR A-Level Religious Studies specification, one subtopic at a time.

The subject, and what is assessed

OCR A-Level Religious Studies (specification H573) is assessed by three written components, each lasting 2 hours and carrying 120 marks. Component 01 covers philosophy of religion and Component 02 covers religion and ethics.

Component 03 covers developments in religious thought for one chosen religion. The religion chosen for Component 03 decides which of the developments options is examinable.

Memorisation, then application

Marks are given for applying content to the question that has been set, which cannot happen while the content is still being looked up. Step 1 shows what is actually held.

Step 2 puts the correct wording in front of you while the gap is still fresh. Step 3 repeats the cold test, and the difference between the first and third attempt is the part that has moved.

Every question in the guide is paired with its answer in the same document, so step 2 is done from the guide itself rather than from a separate set of notes.

What is inside the guide

Questions are grouped by topic and then by subtopic, following the OCR specification. Open a topic to see its subtopics.

Sample questions

Taken from the OCR A-Level Religious Studies guide. Answer each one closed book first, then open the answer.

1. Philosophy of Religion

   How does Plato explain the link between an ordinary object and its Form?

   Show the answer

   He speaks of particulars participating in, or imitating, the Form. A particular horse is a horse because it shares imperfectly in the single Form of Horse, and it is that Form which lets us recognise very different animals as horses at all. The Form is also the standard against which the copy falls short, which is why we can judge a drawn circle to be imperfect without ever having met a perfect one.

2. Religion and Ethics

   What does the word telos mean, and why is it the starting point for natural law?

   Show the answer

   Telos means the end, goal or purpose that something is directed towards. Natural law begins from the claim that everything, including human beings, has a built-in purpose, and that an action is good when it moves a thing towards that purpose and bad when it frustrates it. Morality therefore becomes a question about fulfilling human nature rather than about obeying arbitrary commands.

3. Developments in Christian Thought

   What, on Augustine's account, was human life like before the Fall?

   Show the answer

   Augustine pictures a condition of harmony. Adam and Eve enjoyed friendship with God and with each other, their reason governed their bodily appetites rather than being dragged about by them, and they were free in the fullest sense because they were able not to sin. He even argues that sexual union would have taken place in paradise, but under the calm direction of the will rather than under the compulsion of desire.

4. Developments in Islamic Thought

   Which angel do Muslims believe carried revelation to the prophets, and why does that matter?

   Show the answer

   Jibril, known in English as Gabriel. Muslims believe Jibril is the medium through whom God's words reached the human recipient, so scripture is not the prophet's own composition. Muslims hold that Jibril brought the Qur'an to Muhammad in instalments across roughly twenty-three years. Because an angel mediates, Muslims can affirm at once that God is utterly beyond creation and that He has genuinely spoken to humanity.

5. Developments in Jewish Thought

   Jewish teaching separates a written Torah from an oral Torah. What is the difference between them?

   Show the answer

   The written Torah, Torah shebichtav, is the fixed text of the five books. The oral Torah, Torah shebe'al peh, is the body of interpretation, application and detail that Orthodox Jews hold was given alongside the text at Sinai and passed on by word of mouth for generations before being committed to writing. On this view the two are one revelation in two forms, not a text plus later human commentary.

6. Developments in Buddhist Thought

   What are the four passing sights, and what did each one show Siddhartha?

   Show the answer

   Riding beyond the palace, Siddhartha is said to have encountered an old man, a sick man, a corpse, and finally a wandering holy man. The first three revealed ageing, illness and death as unavoidable for everyone, including himself and those he loved. The fourth showed that some people had given up ordinary life to search for a way through. Together they present the problem and hint at a possible response.

7. Philosophy of Religion

   What does Plato take the soul to be?

   Show the answer

   For Plato the soul is the immaterial and genuinely essential part of a person, temporarily housed in a body which it survives. The body belongs to the changing world of the senses and is often a hindrance; the soul belongs with the Forms and is what does the knowing. Personal identity therefore rests wholly in the soul, and death is a release rather than an ending.

8. Philosophy of Religion

   What makes an argument a posteriori?

   Show the answer

   Its premises depend on experience of the world: you have to look before you can run it. Arguments from design, from causation and from religious experience all begin with something observed, such as order, motion or a reported vision. Because they rest on observation, their conclusions can be revised if what we observe changes, which is both their strength and their weakness.

Questions about this guide

Other OCR A-Level guides

All OCR A-Level guides · All A-Level guides