HSC Studies of Religion Question Thread

[justdoit]

hey guys, just wondering if any predictions have been made as to the short answers and depth religion essay?
thanks

[16Elias]

hey guys, just wondering if any predictions have been made as to the short answers and depth religion essay?
thanks

I have a feeling its going to be one of these, since 2015,14,13,12 and 11, cover every syllabus dot point but these 3:

• discuss how Aboriginal spirituality is determined by the Dreaming
– kinship
– ceremonial life
– obligations to the land and people

• analyse the importance of the Dreaming for the Land Rights movement

• outline changing patterns of religious adherence from 1945 to the present using census data

[dancing phalanges]

Hey just wondering for a holistic question if they will specify if we need to use all 3 parts of the depth study? I did the CSSA 2010 paper for SOR 1 and sent my essay to my teacher and she said on the marking guidelines it said you had to refer to all 3 when in the question it mentioned no such thing, all it had was the quote and then: Assess to what extent this quote reflects the core teachings of Christianity as a Living Religious Tradition. I'm just thinking that would have been heaps unfair for 2010 HSCers doing that paper that did 2 parts of their depth study when in the marking criteria it says you had to use all three? Thanks

[16Elias]

Hey just wondering for a holistic question if they will specify if we need to use all 3 parts of the depth study? I did the CSSA 2010 paper for SOR 1 and sent my essay to my teacher and she said on the marking guidelines it said you had to refer to all 3 when in the question it mentioned no such thing, all it had was the quote and then: Assess to what extent this quote reflects the core teachings of Christianity as a Living Religious Tradition. I'm just thinking that would have been heaps unfair for 2010 HSCers doing that paper that did 2 parts of their depth study when in the marking criteria it says you had to use all three? Thanks

This is a very broad question, so I think 2 parts of the depth study should be fine. Prehaps just doing all 3 will keep you on the safe side.

I have managed to do all the 2015-11 5 markers - now i just have read them, over and over again.

For section 2 - Should I do the same for the short answers? Or shoud i just do 1 past paper question? (I feel like the short answer for Islam are going to be all the same). 

As for the essay, im having trouble finding 'quotes' from my notes to memorise. Should I pick information from each section? Im just overall confused...

[dancing phalanges]

This is a very broad question, so I think 2 parts of the depth study should be fine. Prehaps just doing all 3 will keep you on the safe side.

I have managed to do all the 2015-11 5 markers - now i just have read them, over and over again.

For section 2 - Should I do the same for the short answers? Or shoud i just do 1 past paper question? (I feel like the short answer for Islam are going to be all the same). 

As for the essay, im having trouble finding 'quotes' from my notes to memorise. Should I pick information from each section? Im just overall confused...

For Section 2 just make sure you know:
The ethical teachings and their impact of the lives of adherents. (I would say know 3 different types)
How to describe your practice, how it reflects the principal beliefs and how it is important for the individual and community.
How your significant individual contributed to the development and expression of your religion.
If you know this you should be sweet.
For your essay - you had plenty of quotes, if you are confused I would suggest thinking of how you would use them in an argument. So, group your quotes into Ethics, Practice and Significant figure obviously. From there, group them into specific ethics, individual/community significance for practice (most will be individual) and into the different ways your significant figure contributed to the religion (eg. for Paul I would group my quotes according to Justification by Faith, his contribution to the Early Church, his teachings on the importance of love etc.) And then finally have some quotes for a broader question focusing on the principal beliefs of your religion eg. Christianity = salvation, revelation, death and resurrection of christ etc.

[16Elias]

For Section 2 just make sure you know:
The ethical teachings and their impact of the lives of adherents. (I would say know 3 different types)
How to describe your practice, how it reflects the principal beliefs and how it is important for the individual and community.
How your significant individual contributed to the development and expression of your religion.
If you know this you should be sweet.
For your essay - you had plenty of quotes, if you are confused I would suggest thinking of how you would use them in an argument. So, group your quotes into Ethics, Practice and Significant figure obviously. From there, group them into specific ethics, individual/community significance for practice (most will be individual) and into the different ways your significant figure contributed to the religion (eg. for Paul I would group my quotes according to Justification by Faith, his contribution to the Early Church, his teachings on the importance of love etc.) And then finally have some quotes for a broader question focusing on the principal beliefs of your religion eg. Christianity = salvation, revelation, death and resurrection of christ etc.

Awesome! I have made a document, could you please check it? I will send it through google drive.

[winstondarmawan]

Hey guys!
I realised that I have a serious shortage of quotes for Baptism (Christianity Depth Study - Significant Practice), particularly for impact on individual and community.
If anyone could help out that would be great.
TIA.

[jamonwindeyer]

Hey guys!
I realised that I have a serious shortage of quotes for Baptism (Christianity Depth Study - Significant Practice), particularly for impact on individual and community.
If anyone could help out that would be great.
TIA.

Check out the Notes section

[gh971]

Hey Atar Notes,
Do you have any tips for writing integrated essay responses??
Should the discussion of practice, person and ethic all be underpinned by key beliefs of the religion?
Thanks!!

[dancing phalanges]

Hey Atar Notes,
Do you have any tips for writing integrated essay responses??
Should the discussion of practice, person and ethic all be underpinned by key beliefs of the religion?
Thanks!!

Yeah definitely! Personally for Christianity a great way to link all (I do marriage, Paul and sexual ethics) is through Jesus' commandment of love. But otherwise definitely try look now at how each one reflects the principal beliefs. Eg for me, salvation is a great one as in marriage, the love between man and wife is supposed to reflect the unconditional love Christ displayed in his death and resurrection (essentially his salvation) and then paul wrote on how faith alone was sufficient to receive salvation and how the eucharist was highly significant in that it was symbolic of christ's sacrifice and salvation. But yeah as well as that definitely see if all your 3 topics can be linked to Jesus' commandment of love as it is a personal favourite of mine

[gh971]

Yeah definitely! Personally for Christianity a great way to link all (I do marriage, Paul and sexual ethics) is through Jesus' commandment of love. But otherwise definitely try look now at how each one reflects the principal beliefs. Eg for me, salvation is a great one as in marriage, the love between man and wife is supposed to reflect the unconditional love Christ displayed in his death and resurrection (essentially his salvation) and then paul wrote on how faith alone was sufficient to receive salvation and how the eucharist was highly significant in that it was symbolic of christ's sacrifice and salvation. But yeah as well as that definitely see if all your 3 topics can be linked to Jesus' commandment of love as it is a personal favourite of mine

Legend! Thanks so much

[winstondarmawan]

What is the ideal structure for an integrated essay like that? Because there are so many sections for each third of the depth study I always get lost on figuring out how to structure it.
TIA!

[dancing phalanges]

What is the ideal structure for an integrated essay like that? Because there are so many sections for each third of the depth study I always get lost on figuring out how to structure it.
TIA!

This is hard to say - it depends entirely on the question. For instance, take the 2013 Question:
Discuss the relationship between at least TWO aspects of your depth study and the way they contribute to Christianity as a living religious tradition.
I would personally structure this by how each area of the depth study reveals the importance of Jesus' commandment of Love and how this ethical teaching is relevant to today's Christians in making wise choices in order to be faithful followers of Christ. So in this case, your structure is simply:
PRACTICE
SIGNIFICANT FIGURE
ETHICS
And in each one you discuss the relevant details eg. in Practice for Marriage you discuss how it is a reflection of Christ's unconditional love, for significant figure how Paul viewed love as the essence of all commandments and Ethics how in reference to homosexuality, whilst maintaining homosexual acts as wrong, recent writings by teaching authorities in Christianity have highlighted the need to respect and show compassion to homosexual persons. All these relate to Jesus' commandment of love. Linking them to L.R.T should be throughout your response. For instance, these teaching authorities preaching of the need to treat homosexual people with respect is only recent and therefore adapting its teachings to suit modern times (link to LRT). Paul's teaching on the importance of love is read at marriages today (LRT). Marriage is obviously still a key practice within the Christian faith and therefore its teachings also remain relevant. That sort of thing. That's one example but as I said - it depends on the question. more often that not, divide into 3 paras to represent each section of your depth study and in each para explore how they reflect the core idea you are arguing eg. commandment of love and that will integrate it effectively and without being confusing

[gh971]

Besides quotes and relevant content what distinguishes higher mark (band 6) short answer question and essay responses?? Is it the level of detail and revelant examples or the quanitity of writing?

[dancing phalanges]

Besides quotes and relevant content what distinguishes higher mark (band 6) short answer question and essay responses?? Is it the level of detail and revelant examples or the quanitity of writing?

Obviously having relevant scriptural references is important as you said. I think an important thing to have in an SOR essay is a concise writing style. So being direct and to the point. I think also clearly structuring it as to prove a point and argue something is important. And when you are given a stimulus, particularly a quote, a Band 6 response usually incorporates parts of the stimulus throughout the response - so not just in the intro and conclusion and start of paragraphs, but also within their body paragraphs. So for instance, if the stimulus is something like the 2014 one -  Dear friend, do not imitate what is evil, but what is good. Integrating into your body paragraphs words such as "evil" and "good". That one is a simple example but even that can get you high marks!