AQA exams in 41 days
Essay plans, five-mark model answers, and active recall revision notes — written by practising examiners and teachers
Most A-Level philosophy students read the arguments, follow them fine, and then get to the exam and can't write anything. The problem isn't understanding — it's that understanding and being able to reconstruct an argument under pressure are completely different skills. That's what this site trains.
Every argument, counter-argument, and evaluation laid out as a structured debate. Each plan includes cruciality rankings so you know which points carry the most weight, standard form arguments with identified weakest premises, and full evaluations that model the kind of judgement examiners reward.
Example — Problem of Evil
Move 1 · Mackie
P1: God is omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly good
P2: A good being always eliminates evil where possible
P3: Evil exists
C: Therefore God does not exist
Weakest premise: P2
Move 2 · Plantinga (responds to Move 1)
God cannot create genuinely free beings who always choose good — that is a logical contradiction. The free will defence blocks P2.
Five-mark question
Explain what Kant means by the categorical imperative.
Model answer
The categorical imperative is Kant's supreme principle of morality — a command that applies unconditionally, regardless of our desires. Unlike hypothetical imperatives (“if you want X, do Y”), it binds all rational agents simply in virtue of their rationality. Kant's first formulation — the Formula of Universal Law — states: act only on maxims you could consistently will to be universal laws. Lying, for instance, fails this test: if everyone lied, the institution of truth-telling collapses, making the very act of lying impossible.
Most revision sites ignore the five-markers entirely. We have 202 model answers covering every five-mark question across the entire AQA specification — written by examiners who know exactly what the mark scheme rewards.
Essay plans, five-mark model answers, and key terms for every topic across all four papers of the AQA 7172 specification.
Essay plans covering the tripartite view of knowledge and whether justified true belief is sufficient for knowledge, direct realism and indirect realism as theories of perception, Berkeley's idealism and the master argument, Descartes' innatism and Locke's empiricist response, and Descartes' intuition and deduction thesis including the cogito and the trademark argument. Five-mark model answers on perception, Gettier problems, reliabilism, virtue epistemology, and philosophical scepticism. Key terms for every topic on the epistemology specification.
Tripartite View, Direct Realism, Indirect Realism, Berkeley's Idealism, Innatism, Intuition & Deduction, Scepticism
Essay plans for Bentham and Mill's utilitarianism including the hedonic calculus and rule utilitarianism, Kant's deontological ethics and the categorical imperative, Aristotle's virtue ethics and the function argument for eudaimonia, and moral realism including intuitionism, naturalism, and Mackie's error theory. Five-mark model answers on the categorical imperative, the hedonic calculus, eudaimonia, moral anti-realism, emotivism, and prescriptivism. Key terms covering metaethics, normative ethics, and applied ethics.
Utilitarianism, Kantian Ethics, Virtue Ethics, Moral Realism
Essay plans on the problem of evil including Mackie's logical problem, Plantinga's free will defence, and Hick's soul-making theodicy. The cosmological argument covering the Kalam argument and Leibniz's argument from contingency. Anselm's ontological argument and Kant's objection that existence is not a predicate. The teleological argument including Paley's watchmaker, Hume's criticisms, and Darwin's objection. The coherence of God including the paradox of the stone and the Euthyphro dilemma. Five-mark model answers on omnipotence, omniscience, Aquinas' five ways, and the free will defence.
Problem of Evil, Cosmological Argument, Ontological Argument, Teleological Argument, Coherence of God
Essay plans covering Descartes' substance dualism and the indivisibility argument, Chalmers' property dualism and the zombie argument, Smart's mind-brain type identity theory and the multiple realisability objection, Putnam's functionalism and the Chinese mind objection, Ryle's logical behaviourism and the super Spartans counter-example, and the Churchlands' eliminative materialism and the self-refutation objection. Five-mark model answers on qualia, the knowledge argument, philosophical zombies, multiple realisability, Ryle's category mistake, and the hard problem of consciousness.
Substance Dualism, Property Dualism, Mind-Brain Identity, Functionalism, Behaviourism, Eliminative Materialism, Issues Facing Dualism
All content written by practising A-Level philosophy teachers and AQA examiners. Structured for the AQA 7172 specification — Paper 1 (Epistemology and Moral Philosophy) and Paper 2 (Metaphysics of God and Metaphysics of Mind).