NZ Scholarship Religious Studies study plan

Map the full Religious Studies domain into a one-page concept diagram linking the three strands: religious traditions and their origins, religious language and interpretation, and religion in contemporary society

Define and write working definitions for the core analytical terms the exam rewards: tradition, doctrine, ritual, myth, ethics, secularisation, pluralism, fundamentalism, hermeneutics

Audit your existing knowledge by writing, from memory, a 300-word account of one tradition's foundational narrative and then marking every point you could not justify with a source

Build a personal source log spreadsheet with columns for scholar, work, date, argument, and where you would deploy it

Compare two major traditions' foundational narratives side by side, identifying what each claims about revelation, authority, and human nature

Construct arguments for and against the view that religious traditions are best understood as responses to historical contingency rather than to transcendence

Practise writing a thesis statement and a three-line argument skeleton for four unseen essay prompts under 10 minutes each

Identify three scholars whose work you can paraphrase accurately and check each against a primary or reputable secondary source

Analyse how religious language functions across analogy, metaphor, symbol, and literal claim, applying each category to a specific doctrinal example

Evaluate the strengths and limits of verificationist and falsificationist critiques of religious language

Draft a sustained argument on whether religious language can be meaningful without committing to the truth of the claims it expresses

Annotate two past essay questions to show what the command word actually demands

Trace how one tradition's ethics derive from its sources of authority, and test whether the derivation is coherent

Compare consequentialist, deontological, and virtue-based readings of a contested religious ethical issue

Rehearse a full essay under exam conditions in 60 minutes and then mark it against a self-authored rubric

Revise the glossary to remove weak entries and add any term you met during writing

Examine religion in contemporary society through secularisation theory, rational choice theory, and post-secular accounts, stating each theory's strongest evidence

Assemble New Zealand and Pacific-relevant examples of religious change, pluralism, and public religion with accurate dates and sources

Argue both for and against the claim that religion is being privatised rather than declining

Identify where a scholar's argument is contested and write a one-sentence rebuttal you could deploy in an essay

Integrate the three strands by writing an essay that moves from textual or doctrinal analysis to a contemporary application without losing argumentative thread

Practise handling unseen stimulus-free prompts by generating your own framing question before answering

Diagnose your three recurring weaknesses from marked work and design a targeted drill for each

Condense the source log into 10 scholar cards you can recall in 30 seconds each

Sit two full timed papers back to back and record time spent per section

Mark both papers against the official schedule or a rigorous self-built rubric and quantify where marks were lost

Rewrite the two lowest-scoring answers into model answers without consulting notes

Reduce your glossary and concept map to a single revision sheet you can review in 15 minutes

Rehearse thesis generation for 12 unseen prompts at three minutes each until the process is automatic

Review every scholar card and glossary entry, flagging anything you cannot defend and cutting it

Practise exam-day logistics: question choice, time allocation, and a plan-first habit for every essay

Write a final one-page synthesis of the domain in your own words with no notes