Lesson video

Hi, I'm Miss Kendrick.

And welcome to this lesson on interpreting discuss or evaluate questions in the themes units.

In this lesson, we are going to practise understanding the key question in an evaluate or discuss question.

We're going to be as inclusive of different examples as possible.

And we're going to complete a couple of these types of questions together.

I often find that when it comes to these longer answer questions, this is the area where students sometimes struggle the most in terms of identifying what knowledge they have that's going to be relevant, and how to approach answering the question.

The more we practise questions like this, the better we're going to be at it.

So it's really important that you give this lesson a good go.

It probably most helpful to do it when you have done some revision on the themes unit, so that you've got knowledge that you can draw on to answer these questions as well.

I will give you some clues and things like that as we go along to the sort of things you should be including.

But I do you think you'll get the most out of this if you complete the assessment when you have done some revision, and when's this key knowledge is fresh in your mind.

In this lesson we will be referencing some beliefs about death and the treatment of animals.

We're also going to be referring to warfare as well.

These are going to be fairly brief references, but it might be that these are particularly sensitive topics for you.

And if that is the case, then I would advise that you do the rest of this lesson with a trusted adult nearby who can support.

For this lesson you're going to need a pen or pencil.

Some paper to write down your answers and different coloured pen make additions and corrections.

Which is a really important part of feedback.

We'll be getting feedback in this lesson 'cause I'm going to be showing you some example answers, and what's good about them, and what's bad about them.

And you should be making notes on your own work as you go along, because then you can know how to improve further the next time.

So this lesson is all about slowing down and practising.

Really tailoring our answers to these questions.

So discuss or evaluate questions are usually 12 or 15 marks, and we'll have the command word either evaluate or discuss.

Evaluations all about weighing up the strengths and weaknesses of something and discussion is very similar.

If you're having a discussion with somebody you're going to be talking about what's good about something, what's bad about something.

You're going to have this back and forth.

So both of those command words, you're looking for something similar.

And I'd advise you to ask your teacher which exam board you are sitting, 'cause there's going to be slight differences in the structure of the exam.

And you need to know what to expect.

In OCL, Eduqas and WJEC this type of question will be worth 15 marks.

And an AQA at Edexel, it's going to be worth 12 marks.

But how they are answered will be similar.

So this lesson should be relevant regardless of which exam board you are following.

So we're going to start by looking at some example questions and we're going to think about what might be similar about them in terms of what sort of approach you need to take.

So I've got three questions here and they are from different units.

Euthanasia is always wrong.

Evaluate this statement.

Corporal punishment is never acceptable.

Evaluate this statement.

Religions should never support animal testing.

Evaluate this statement.

Oh we need to pause the video for a moment and think about what is similar about all of these questions.

So all of these questions say that something is always wrong.

And to argue against it you don't need to say that it's always right.

You just need to say that in some circumstances it is right.

And this is where some students stumble on these types of lessons because they feel like they need to argue, well euthanasia is always right to argue against it being always wrong.

But instead what's probably going to be a better approach is to say, maybe it's nearly always wrong except for in these extreme circumstances.

And that's going to show that you can really make nice, clear distinctions in your answer and apply these different religious views.

So we're just going to have a quick look at a couple of other types of questions as well.

So firstly the evolution proves that our lives are meaningless.

And scientific views about the origins of life are true, so religious views must be false.

What's similar about these questions? So the similarity here is that both of these questions argue that something's been proven and therefore something else must be wrong.

These questions are interested in whether science and religion are compatible.

And as you'll know from the religion and life unit, that's what it's called in AQA.

And in other examples, they cover many of the same topics.

So that's topics like the creation of the universe and the origins of humanity and the Big Bang theory and evolution and things like that.

For these questions, we are thinking about whether religious views can agree with the scientific views.

And as you'll know, from studying those many Christians and Muslims would say that they can.

That they can they can fit together.

So for this one.

The other thing to keep in mind is that it's very strong language to say something's been proven or that something must be true or must be false, is very strong language.

And therefore it's sometimes easier to argue against it and say that it can never be fully proven to be wrong, for example.

And never fully be proven to be right.

Many religious people would say that religion goes beyond what science can explain or answer.

So they might say that religious beliefs can't be proven wrong by science.

Anyway we're going to look at one of these questions in a bit more detail.

We're going to focus on religion should never support animal testing.

So just to give you a bit of a recap in the sort of subject knowledge that's going to be relevant here.

And the questions we're going to be thinking about as we answer this.

What types of animal testing are there? What are the views on these from Islam and Christianity? Can you remember? Is humanism relevant to the question? This question specifically says religions should never support animal testing.

So it's likely that you're probably going to focus on what those religions say themselves, such as Islam and Christianity.

I'm not saying that you can't make humanist views relevant at all, but it is more focused on religion here.

What makes human life or animal life valuable? What ethical theories are relevant? So for example, situation ethics or the sanctity of life? And what here is specific to religion? I mean, I've mentioned humanism.

And most people will agree that, you know, you don't want animals to suffer unnecessarily.

But what is specific to religious beliefs when we talk about animal suffering or human suffering? Because Christianity and Islam are going to offer the belief that all these animals are created by God.

And that's one of the reasons why they're special, not simply because we don't like seeing a living creature in pain.

So think about what is specific to religious beliefs.

And also it is likely that you would disagree with this statement due to medical testing.

Some questions and you can easily support either side.

Other questions are going to be, one side's going to be stronger than the other.

So I'm not saying that you can't disagree with certain questions or can't agree with certain questions.

All I'm saying is that in this case, when we look at medical testing, religions will generally support it.

So it's most likely that you're going to land on the agree side when it comes to this question.

No, not agree, disagree.

That's another thing we've got to watch out for when we're answering these questions, making sure we know whether we're going on about agreeing or disagreeing with the statement.

Sometimes it's good for me to make mistakes so you can see how easy it is to do so.

We're going to pause a minute now, so you can get some ideas down about the sort of things that you would use to answer this question.

Think about evidence, think about these different views and the different types of animal testing.

So here I've got some views listed, some ideas of what you could include in your answer.

We've got medical testing and cosmetic testing 'cause Christians and Muslims are going to have different views on these.

So when it comes to medical testing, Christianity is going to argue that humans are made in God's image and therefore more important than animals.

We can link this to the sanctity of life.

You could also apply situation ethics here and say that it's more loving towards humans to allow medical testing.

Allow medical testing.

For Islam and lesser jihad you might say that the struggle to build a good Islamic society includes helping develop medicines for the ummah.

So you can make links to something really specific there, like lesser jihad.

I intentionally put in there because it's less obvious than talking about Adam being created by Allah as special.

I do want you to include that sort of thing.

But sometimes students find that they talk about the creation of humans.

They talk about sanctity of life.

And then they get stuck, that they don't really know what else to include.

So something like lesser jihad would be relevant here.

Cosmetic testing.

Muslims and Christians would usually agree that cosmetic testing causes unnecessary suffering.

So they are going to be against it.

They would argue that testing cosmetics on animals brings about a very minimal good to humans.

It doesn't save human life.

Usually there's alternatives to cosmetic testing.

Other natural products that we know aren't going to harm people.

Therefore they would be against it.

And a couple of pieces of evidence.

Mohammed showed respect to animals.

And Christians believe that God told them to rule over every living creature.

And to be a good ruler, to be a good steward.

You're not going to put your subjects through unnecessary suffering.

So they would be against cosmetic testing.

So we're going look at an answer.

I want you to think about what is wrong with it.

Humanists may disagree with the statement as they would say that a medical testing could bring about the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people.

Many people today are alive because of medicines that have been developed through animal testing, therefore they would say that animal testing is okay.

I want to give you a moment for you to think about what is wrong with this answer when it comes to answering this specific question.

So this does not answer this specific question because humanism is not a religion.

I did say before that you might find a way to make humanism relevant here.

But if you were to take that approach, you would need to refer back to the question at the end of this paragraph and explain why the humanist view is relevant.

So you might say that humanists will agree with Christians and Muslims when they talk about medical testing being okay because it saves human lives.

So you could work it in that respect.

But I would make sure I end the paragraph by using the wording of the question to make sure you're staying on track.

And if it's specifically asking you about religion or religious views, think carefully about whether humanism is going to be the best approach in your answer.

So next example, again the question is religions should never support animal testing.

Some Christians would argue that humans are made in God's image and therefore they rule over the animals.

In the Bible, God tells Adam to rule over the living creatures and later gives humans permission to eat animals for food.

Therefore humans are more important than animals.

Pause for a moment and think about what is wrong with this answer.

So this answer has deviated from the question.

Everything in here is correct in that Christians would argue this.

And it is relevant as well.

You wouldn't have to just cross out this paragraph.

You could include it, but you need to link it back to the question.

Because at the end where it says, therefore humans are more important than animals.

That sounds like it's answering a different question.

A question that would say, what's more important, human or animals? Or something like that.

Or humans are more important than animals, evaluate this statement.

But this is about animal testing.

So all you need to do is bring it back.

Again use the wording of the question and say therefore Christians would support medical testing because it saves human life.

Because human life is more important than animal life.

So we're going to pause and you're going to see if you can write a couple of paragraphs to answer this question.

I hope you got on okay with those paragraphs.

I've got a better paragraph for you.

Not better than yours, better than what I was doing before.

A paragraph to show you so you can compare it against your own answer.

So some Christians may agree that religions should never support animal testing.

So straight away I've used the wording of the question.

Because animals are part of God's creation.

This means they are valuable.

They believe Christians have the responsibility of stewardship, and this would include reducing suffering.

In the Bible it says not one sparrow falls to the ground without your Father's consent.

Showing that God loves every creature and will not be pleased with humans if they put them in cages and test on them.

Therefore religion should never support animal testing.

So here the knowledge is applied to this specific question.

So pause the video a moment and add anything that's useful to your own answer.

So you can pinch some of my evidence like that verse to make your answer even better.

This is how we do feedback.

If you're just sitting there watching me and not writing anything down, then you need to start writing down some notes and taking down some answers because that is how we improve.

So we'll have a look at another paragraph, this one from Islam.

So some Muslims may disagree and say that in some circumstances, animal testing should be allowed.

So this is going against that word, never.

It's saying well sometimes it is allowed.

For example, many Muslims would agree that medical testing is acceptable because it helps develop medicines that help the ummah.

Although animal lives are important as they are Allah's creation, human life is more important, as it is sacred you to being specially made by Allah.

However, Muslims will usually be against cosmetic testing on animals because it gives little benefit to human life and therefore causes unnecessary suffering to animals.

Therefore Muslims may argue that religions can support animal testing, but only medical testing.

So this gives a really clear distinction.

It's saying yes to medical testing.

It's recognising that it's not ideal, 'cause it's still causing animal suffering.

But it's worthwhile for the sake of saving human lives.

And it's saying no to cosmetic testing.

So we are dissecting this question.

We're not just saying it's never okay.

We're saying it's sometimes okay.

So again, pause your video and add it to your own answer.

So we're going to have a quick look at a conclusion.

So this one's going to have a problem with it.

In conclusion some people might agree with this statement because they think that it's cruel to test on animals.

Others this will disagree because they think it's important to develop life saving medicines for humans.

Pause the video and I want you to see what's wrong with this conclusion.

So this conclusion does not give a judgement.

It just gives two views.

And it doesn't even say who those views are from.

We do need to say well, Christians will believe, or Muslims will believe.

And on these points, if Christians and Muslims agree, then just say Christians and Muslims will agree that.

But it doesn't give a judgements, it doesn't say which side of the argument is strongest, which is really important in these conclusions.

So we're going to pause for a moment so you can write your own conclusion to this answer.

So here I've got a better conclusion.

I hope got on an okay with yours and you can compare it to mine and see whether you've got all the points you need.

So in conclusion, although both Muslims and Christians would be against cosmetic testing, they are likely to agree that medical testing is acceptable as it saves human lives which are more important than animal lives due to the sanctity of life.

However, they would argue that medical testing should be done in such a way as to minimise the animal suffering involved.

So again, it's disagreeing, it's making a clear judgement.

And it's giving a clear distinction about what is acceptable and what isn't.

It's not arguing that all animal testing is acceptable.

So again, pause video and see if you can add to your own conclusion from what I've got here.

So we're just going to look at one more question.

And I want you to think about what is similar about, or not about these questions.

So religion is more a cause for war than for peace.

Evaluate this statement.

Sex has been devalued in British society.

Evaluate this statement.

Families do not do enough for that elderly relatives in today's society.

Evaluate this statement.

Pause video, and see if you can figure out what's similar about these questions.

So the similarity between these questions is that they're a bit more indirect.

It can be a bit trickier to identify what subject knowledge is going to be relevant and how to answer them.

They're sort of thinking outside the box questions.

And actually I tend to find students struggle with these more because they don't neatly fit with a formula.

They don't directly ask about specific subject knowledge.

And they do require you to draw on your knowledge of wider society.

Now you would have looked at that knowledge in your lessons.

It is more than likely that you will have looked at examples of attitudes towards sex within religion and outside of religion.

Modern day attitudes towards sex.

It is likely that when you've looked at the question that relates to war, when you've looked at war and peace and conflict, it's likely that you would have looked at examples of wars.

You might also have some really relevant general knowledge.

You might be doing history and therefore you might be learning about warfare in recent history.

You might just have a general knowledge from your previous years studying history as well.

All of these things are relevant and you can use them in your answer.

The key thing to remember here is that you must make sure you are including the religious views.

Are Christians and Muslims going to agree with the idea that sex has been devalued in British society? Many might agree, 'cause they might say that people are much more promiscuous than they once were and therefore sex isn't being valued in the same way.

They might say sex is valuable and should therefore only happen within a marriage.

Whereas others might disagree and say actually it's even more valued because people have the freedom to choose in a way that they might not have been able to choose 50 years ago, 100 years ago.

So we can see here that we can have a real discussion about what life is like in our culture and what religious people are going to think about it.

We're going to look at the question, religion is more of a cause for war than for peace in a bit more detail.

So why might someone suggest this? And people do suggest it.

I once had someone say to me.

I met somebody, a friend of a friend, and they said to me, "What's your job?" And I said, "Oh, I'm an R.

E.

teacher." And they said, "Oh, religion, the cause of all war." And I remember thinking, do you know any examples? I think I asked him, "Which wars are you thinking of?" And he couldn't tell me.

And it's because he'd gotten this attitude from somewhere.

He probably didn't know where.

But it is a view that some people have that religion is a cause of conflict.

And this is one of the reasons why it's something that we look at in the GCSE.

So what's going to be relevant here are the teachings about war that you can remember from Islam and Christianity.

We're focusing on Islam and Christianity in this lesson.

What teachings can you remember about peace? And can you think of any examples of war from recent history? Because it's going to be really useful to use specific examples in this question.

Another thing I want to point out is the wording of the question.

It doesn't say religion is a cause of war.

And it doesn't say religion is the cause of peace.

It says that religion causes war more than it causes peace.

So you want to make sure that you're balancing both of those out and that you're answering the question in full.

'Cause I think this question actually, it would be really easy to deviate and just talk about whether or not religion causes war and not talk about the peace aspect of the question.

You could also add in here that any religious aspects to a war are very difficult to separate from political aspects.

When we look at war historically, or even in current day, it's going to be really difficult to unpick all the different reasons why warfare might take place.

And many people would argue that religion does play a role, but so does politics.

And can you separate those two things out in reality? That's a big question, isn't it? So we're going to pause video now and going to get you to answer some questions.

Write down some bullet points to think about different information you could include in this answer.

I hope you got on okay with your bullet points.

Before I get you to write any answers, I'm going to give you a couple of examples where the answer's gone wrong a little bit.

So again, the question is religion is more cause for war than for peace.

One reason why a country might go to war is due to greed.

For example, one country might invade another to take control of their land and resources.

This goes against against Just War theory.

As the theory says that country should only go to war with the right intention.

I want you to pause the video and think about what is wrong with this answer.

So this answer does not apply the knowledge to the question.

It is talking about a cause for war.

And so for example, causes for war would be greed, self-defense retaliation.

But it's not talking about whether religion is going to be at the root of that greed that might cause war.

And it's not saying what religion would say about greed either.

It just says that it doesn't fit with Just War theory.

And it doesn't even say here whether or not Just War theory is a religious view.

So you need to make sure you're applying it to the question.

Got another rogue paragraph here.

Many humanists would agree with this statement because religious people claim that their beliefs are right and therefore they will fight others who disagree with them.

Disagreements about God always lead to warfare.

What's wrong with this paragraph? Pause the video and jot it down.

So it doesn't actually refer to any religious beliefs about warfare.

It's true maybe some humanists will have this view, but we want to think about what are the religious teachings due to war? And there are examples where believers fought due to different beliefs.

But you need to actually use them and be specific.

So for example if you know your history and you know anything about The Reformation, there was lots of fighting in The Reformation between Roman Catholics and Protestants about these beliefs.

These beliefs about the communion.

Beliefs about the authority of the church and tradition.

There was fighting about whether the Bible should be translated.

So there was fighting and that was due to these differences in belief.

But you can't just make that statement without an example.

You need to back up what you're saying.

Because otherwise it's not going to be very persuasive.

It just sounds like someone going, "Oh yeah well it always causes war, doesn't it?" And if you can't back that up with any evidence like historical details, then it's not going to be a very strong answer.

So make sure you have your evidence is the lesson from this paragraph.

So I've got one more for you before you write your own answer.

Many questions would argue that politics is more of a cause for war than religion.

For example, in World War II or World War II was started due to Hitler invading other countries to make Germany greater.

Many Christians chose to be pacifists in world war two.

Therefore religion is not cause for war, politics is.

What is wrong with this paragraph? So this one, again, doesn't answer the specific question.

The question is asking whether religion brings about war or peace, not whether other things are a bigger cause of war.

I'm not saying you can't include this in your answer at all, but in the end of the paragraph, I would link it back.

And what you could say here is where it says many Christians chose to be pacifist.

You could say, well, surely that means that religion is more of a cause for peace rather than war because we've got examples of Christians arguing against war or protesting against war.

So with all of those things in mind, let's see if you can write your own paragraphs.

I hope you got on okay with that.

So I'm going to give you an example answer.

One reason why a country might go to war is due to greed.

So I'm using some of the same information that I used earlier, but this time I'm going to apply it to the question properly.

For example, one country might invade another to take control of their land and resources.

This goes against Just War theory as the theory says that a country should only go to war with the right intention.

Additionally, both Christianity and Islam teach against greed.

For example, Islam teaches that all wealth belongs to Allah.

And they give zakah to cleanse their money from greed.

Christianity also teaches that we should not be jealous of what others have in the 10 commandments.

Therefore religion is not more a cause for war than peace as teaching against greed will bring about peace rather than war.

So this is referring to the specific question.

It's talking about how religion might be more of a cause for peace rather than war.

So this is the sort of way you can tailor your answer to this specific question.

So we'll have a quick look at a conclusion that's got something wrong with it.

And you might struggle to find what's wrong with this conclusion.

It's much better than other poor conclusions I've shown you.

But it could be improved further.

So in conclusion, religious people would argue that religion is not a cause for war.

For example, Muslims may say that Islam means peace and Christians may argue that Jesus taught people to love their enemies.

Therefore Christians or Muslims are pacifists and do not cause war.

So what's wrong with this question? Pause the video and see if we can figure it out.

So the problem here is that there's a sweeping statement at the end.

Not all Christians are pacifists and Muhammad himself fought in the battle of the Badr.

So although Muslims would say that's really important to bring about peace, they will say that it's okay to fight in self defence or in defence of other Muslims. So that last statement that Christians and Muslims have pacifists, it's just not reflective of those religious beliefs.

Instead it would be better for you to say that many are pacifists or they aim for peace as much as possible.

And therefore you might disagree with this statement.

So I'm going to let you pause now and write your own conclusion.

Well done for writing your conclusion.

Before we finish, I'll show you my model conclusion and we can see if you can improve yours any further.

So in conclusion, although there examples in history in which religion has played a part in starting a war, this cannot be totally separated from politics.

Additionally, both Islam and Christianity give clear limitations to warfare.

For example, the Just War theory outlines when war is justifiable, and many Christians would argue that due to Just War theory, it is right to go war to correct a wrong.

Like save people from genocide.

Islam clearly States that you should make peace with your enemy if they are willing.

Therefore religion is more cause for peace than a war.

So in this conclusion we've got several reasons for that answer.

And there's a clear statement on the end as well.

So pause the video and see if you can add to your own conclusion.

Make sure you've got lots of reasons to support your final judgement.

Well done for all of your hard work in this lesson.

I imagine you've done lots of writing.

I hope you have.

And I also hope that your work is covered in corrections and additions as well because this is how we learn by taking on feedback.

So thank you again for all of your hard work.

You are now free to do the exit quiz.