AS and A Level

It is undoubtedly true, as is often poin­ted out, that some univer­sit­ies and many more academic depart­ments do not accept General Stud­ies as being equal to conven­tional A level discip­lines. It is equally true that most univer­sit­ies and most depart­ments do accept it as an altern­at­ive third A level.

It is worth point­ing out that at least some univer­sity depart­ments regard General Stud­ies as their best indic­ator of likely perform­ance on a degree course since the approach requires almost entirely the applic­a­tion of skills learned rather than a test of content.

Since we began teach­ing our General Stud­ies exam­in­a­tion programme, we have been delighted with the results in terms of the A level grades achieved. In some cases, the A level has not been of direct use to a candid­ate apply­ing for degree courses, but in many cases it has either been taken into account in terms of the points gained to qual­ify for admis­sion, or it has taken the place of the third A level. General Stud­ies has been one of the most success­ful A levels in terms of its results over the past decade.

Several teach­ing staff are involved in the two-year programme, provid­ing their indi­vidual expert­ise in teach­ing classes or super­vising indi­vidual private stud­ies. General Stud­ies calls for skills in hand­ling inform­a­tion from varied areas of know­ledge in a diversity of form and allows the devel­op­ment of these skills in a context free from the restric­tions imposed by other subject-specification disciplines.

All Sixth Form students who are compet­ent in writ­ten and spoken English are required to attend classes in General Stud­ies and normally most choose to take the exam­in­a­tion at A level.

Specific­a­tion: OCR General Stud­ies  AS H079  A H479
Click here to down­load the current specific­a­tion for this A level course.

General Stud­ies is examined in four papers, two for the AS and two for the A2 exam lead­ing to the A level qualification.

There are three main ingredi­ents to the programme of study:

A Scientific Domain includ­ing Math­em­at­ics, Science and Tech­no­logy
A Cultural Domain includ­ing Culture, Moral­ity, Arts and Human­it­ies
A Social Domain includ­ing Soci­ety, Polit­ics and Economics

General Stud­ies is the applic­a­tion of academic and theor­et­ical know­ledge to a discus­sion of current prob­lems or issues in every day life.

The Science Domain touches issues such as global warm­ing, pollu­tion, prin­ciples of scientific study, math­em­at­ical reas­on­ing and tech­niques, grav­ity, disease control, recyc­ling and peace-keeping among many others.

The Culture Domain touches issues of belief, instincts, conscience, minor­ity cultures, the nature of west­ern soci­ety, the media, fash­ion, music and aesthetics.

The Social Domain covers the polit­ical system, educa­tion, poverty, social struc­ture, ideo­lo­gies, human beha­viour, law and ethics, trans­port issues and current areas of polit­ical controversy.