LGCSE Religious Studies (0186) common mistakes
LGCSE Religious Studies (0186) · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
States a core belief as a bare fact ("Muslims believe in Tawhid", "Christians believe Jesus rose from the dead") and then moves straight to the next point without saying what difference the belief makes to a believer's life or practice.
Revision notes and flashcards reward recall of terms, so candidates treat beliefs as items to list rather than as claims that shape behaviour, worship and ethics.
What to do instead
Train a two-sentence chain for every belief: "This means that..." followed by "Therefore a believer would...". E.g. Tawhid means God is one and without partners, therefore a Muslim rejects any image or intermediary in worship and submits directly to God.
Drops a scripture quotation into an answer without naming the source, explaining what it means, or showing why that text carries authority for the community being discussed.
Quotation-drop is a habit carried over from English literature answers, where the quote alone is often assumed to earn credit.
What to do instead
Use a fixed pattern: name the text (e.g. Qur'an 17:33, a hadith of the Prophet, Genesis 1:27), paraphrase its meaning, then state explicitly why it is authoritative for that tradition (revealed, canonical, interpreted by a scholar or council).
In "to what extent" or "how far" questions, gives only the arguments that support one view and ends without any judgement, or bolts on a one-line opinion with no reasoning.
Candidates believe a strong opinion is what is being tested, and often run out of time because they spend too long on the first viewpoint.
What to do instead
Plan before writing: two paragraphs for, two against, then a short conclusion that weighs them ("On balance, the stronger argument is... because..."). Use signposting: "However", "A critic would reply", "This is more convincing because".
Writes "Christians believe..." or "Muslims believe..." as though each tradition were a single mind, ignoring denominations, schools of law and internal debate.
Summary revision guides compress traditions into one line, and candidates do not realise that credit depends on recognising diversity.
What to do instead
Build the habit of qualifying: "most", "some", "many Sunni Muslims", "the Catholic Church teaches", "some Protestants hold". Keep a short list per religion of two groups that differ and one issue on which they differ.
Describes the stages of a festival or rite (washing, procession, prayer, fasting) as a narrative but never links each stage to the doctrine or story it expresses.
Ritual sequence is easy to memorise and feels like a complete answer, so candidates stop at description.
What to do instead
For every practice, force one "because" sentence: the wudu precedes prayer because ritual purity is required before standing before God; the hajj re-enacts Hagar's search because trust in God's provision is a model for the believer.
When asked to compare two religions on a social or ethical issue, writes one full section on religion A and a separate full section on religion B, with no sentence that explicitly states a similarity or difference.
Candidates revise topic-by-topic and reproduce that structure in the exam, assuming comparison is implied by adjacency.
What to do instead
Restructure into point-by-point paragraphs: state the issue, give A's teaching, give B's teaching, then write an explicit comparison sentence ("Both traditions treat life as God-given, but they differ on whether...").
Misattributes authority: cites a hadith as if it were the Qur'an, calls the Talmud "the Torah", quotes the Pope as the authority for all Christians, or says "the Bible says" without indicating which book, letter or law code.
Sources are learned as a blurred list of holy books and leaders, without mapping which community treats which source as binding and in what way.
What to do instead
Make one authority map per tradition showing scripture, secondary literature, founders, scholars and living leaders, with a one-line example of each in use. Test yourself by classifying five quotations per religion by source.
Responds to ethical issues with moralising ("it is simply wrong", "everyone knows life is sacred") instead of naming the teaching or principle and applying it to the specific issue in the question.
Personal conviction and everyday moral language take over when the candidate has not practised moving from principle to application.
What to do instead
Practise a three-step drill on each issue: name the principle (sanctity of life, ahimsa, agape, stewardship, lesser jihad), state what it implies for this exact case, then assess how convincing that reasoning is against a rival principle.
Mismatches the command word: describes when asked to explain, explains when asked to evaluate, or gives a personal view when asked what a tradition teaches.
Candidates read the topic rather than the instruction, and under time pressure fall back on whatever they have memorised.
What to do instead
Underline the command word and the focus words before planning. Keep a command-word ladder: describe = what; explain = why/because; analyse = how the parts relate; evaluate = how far, with judgement. Check the first line of each paragraph against the command word.
Uses key terms loosely or interchangeably, e.g. omnipotence for omniscience, monotheism for henotheism, sacrament for ordinance, or "faith" as a synonym for "religion".
Terms are memorised as isolated definitions without a contrasting term or an example sentence, so they collapse under exam pressure.
What to do instead
Make definition cards in pairs with a contrast and an example: omnipotence (all-powerful, can act) versus omniscience (all-knowing, knows); sacrament (conveys grace, e.g. Eucharist) versus ordinance (obedience, e.g. believers' baptism). Write one sentence using each correctly.