How to get a Grade 9 in Religious Studies GCSE

Achieving a grade 9 in GCSE Religious Studies takes more than last-minute revision, it requires a clear grasp of the entire syllabus and a deep understanding of each topic. Too often, students drop marks by overlooking topics, misreading the mark scheme, or neglecting to use key quotes and terminology. In this guide, one of Keystone’s experienced tutors shares his top tips to help you build knowledge, sharpen exam technique, and secure a top grade in Religious Studies GCSE.

All students will study the beliefs, teachings and practices of two different religions. Christianity is compulsory but the other choice could be Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism or Sikhism.

Whatever the religion, the core requirement of all Religious Studies GCSE specifications is the same across all exam boards: “Students should know and understand the basis for beliefs and teachings and practices and be able to reference relevant sources of wisdom and authority, including scripture and/or sacred texts.” 

Depending on your school’s choice, the other half of your GCSE Religious Studies will either be textual studies or (more commonly) a study of religious, philosophical and ethical themes and their influence on the modern world.

The two assessment objectives also common across all exam boards too. They both have equal weighting towards your final grade:

1. Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of religion and belief, including:
   • Beliefs, practices and sources of authority
   • Influence on individuals, communities and societies
   • Similarities and differences within and/or between religions and beliefs
2. Analyse and evaluate aspects of religion and belief, including their significance and influence.

Make a list of topics on your syllabus

It is surprising how few students do this, given that missing out a topic for revision is a often a cause of poor exam performance. Find your syllabus on the list below, and check with your teacher which options your school has chosen:

• OCR Religious Studies GCSE
• Cambridge Religious Studies iGCSE
• Pearson Edexcel Religious Studies GCSE
• Pearson Edexcel Religious Studies iGCSE
• AQA Religious Studies GCSE
• Eduqas/WJEC Religious Studies GCSE

Prioritise these things for understanding

It is not enough just to do some reading here. You should confirm that you actually understand a topic by trying to explain it in your own words. This technique is called narration, and you could do it with a friend, family member, or even a pet or house plant! The important thing is that the process usually reveals any gaps in your understanding, or areas where your knowledge is a little fuzzy. Then you know what to go back and fix afterwards. 

Time is limited, so here are the things you should focus this effort on:

1. Memorise the core beliefs. These underlie most of the ethical and societal viewpoints of the religion. Understanding them will help you accurately express those in a realistic belief context.
2. Understand your sources of wisdom and authority. Specifically, the history, content and interpretation of the texts that guide religious believers – and additionally the institutions or figures that lead them. This is immeasurably valuable for improving your accuracy, depth of explanation and evaluation in essays. The best students know their sources as a coherent whole; the worst students only know some disconnected quotes.
3. Make mind maps of thematic topics: Plain bullet points are a bad way to visualise the directions that lie open to you when writing about these topics. It is hard to keep track because each viewpoint generates its own thread of arguments for-and-against. Much better to visualise it as a mind map. Here is a guide showing how to create one for yourself.

Prioritise these things for memorisation

1. Memorise a list of key terms. Use as many of these as possible in your answers where they can be made relevant.
2. Memorise a core bank of key quotes. There are some that are so foundational to a religion’s thinking that they can be used across multiple topics, especially in the themes paper. Here are some examples for Christianity:

There is no shortcut to memorisation: the look-cover-repeat-check method is most effective for Religious Studies, just as it is for learning lines in Drama or vocabulary lists in languages.

Master the mark scheme

When time is tight, knowing the mark scheme helps you know what to prioritise and how to move on fast.

There are usually three types of question in a GCSE Religious studies paper:

1. Factual recall: These only need simple bullet points from you. Aim to get them down in less than thirty seconds.
2. Point and explanation: Depending on the exam board, these may require two points but a bit of extra information for each one. Two sentences should do the trick. Don’t waffle!
3. Point, explanation and use of source of wisdom & authority. As above, but use or paraphrase a quote.
4. Discussions: These are where most of the marks are, but where you can most easily go off track. To be safe, you should follow an essay structure that allows you to fully present two contrasting viewpoints on the issue and then (crucially) to evaluate why you think one of them is stronger than the other.

Adopt a simple plan for discussion questions

This prevents you getting lost and losing a line of argument. Plan each of your points and counterpoints. Do them side-by-side to ensure that the counterpoint is challenging the point. The strongest essays link them in this way.

Practise the skill of evaluation

It is not worth doing this until you have covered the points above. Poor knowledge is the most common reason for weak essays, because knowledge is what you think with! To use a metaphor, it doesn’t matter how good you are at cooking: you will make a poor meal if you don’t have enough of the right ingredients. 

Practise writing in timed conditions

This is a matter of training. However, you should reserve it until you have covered the points above because you will naturally write faster when you are more confident in your knowledge, and have the understanding to easily generate points.

Timings vary by exam board so check with your teacher, but some are effectively a mark a minute. You can gain time by answering the short factual questions very quickly, and then reinvest this time into your discussion essay (or planning for it).

GCSE Religious Studies Tutors

With tutors based in London and available online to families around the world, Keystone is one of the UK’s leading private tutoring organisations. Find out more about our GCSE Religious Studies Tutors and IGCSE Religious Studies Tutors.