28 November 2002 12:00 AM
What is it? Like some deities, this course can take on many different forms. You can focus on one religion, or dip into Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Judaism, Sikhism or Buddhism. You can study the philosophy of religion: if there is a God, why is there suffering? Or you can focus on ethical issues such as abortion or euthanasia.
27 June 2002 12:00 AM
Solving problems with numbers. Maths A-level is in four sections: pure, discrete, mechanics and statistics. Pure is maths for its own sake, not applied to the real world. Discrete uses maths to make decisions, often in a business context. Mechanics is the study of the movement of objects. Statistics deals with the analysis of data.
30 May 2002 12:00 AM
What is it?
The study of a dead language. There's no need for speaking and listening, so pupils concentrate on translation and – more rarely – writing. You'll study all the greats: poetry by Virgil and Ovid and the prose of Cicero, Caesar and Tacitus. The good news is that students no longer have to chant grammatical structures at their teachers and that Classical texts are racy, to say the least.
18 April 2002 12:00 AM
What is it?: You'll study fine art, painting, sculpture and the decorative arts, and the social and political context in which they were produced. At AS-level you'll look at early European art by the Greeks, Romans and Byzantines, and modern art. In A2 there's a chance to specialise, including writing a long essay on a subject of your choice.
13 July 2001 12:00 AM
What is it? The study of a language spoken in Bangladesh and West Bengal in India, and by those communities in the UK; a member of the Indo- Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family. You learn it through topics on society and culture. No literature at A/S-level: that comes in the second year of the sixth form.
13 July 2001 12:00 AM
What does it involve? The study of substances: eg why graphite is soft but diamonds are hard. You look at the make-up of substances, the molecules and atoms, and what happens when you combine them. You also examine chemistry's relevance to everyday life: eg in making detergents and fibres, and the optimum temperature for washing clothes so as to minimise energy wastage.
13 July 2001 12:00 AM
What is it? The study of the language spoken by about one-fifth of the world's population. You learn Mandarin for the written stuff and Cantonese when speaking the lingo. For AS-level, you have to do three comprehension passages and one piece of continuous writing - an essay to you and me. Oh yes, and a translation from Chinese into English. No literature at AS-level, or speaking and listening. But you learn about China's culture and society through the passages you translate. At A-level, you do a comprehension, a translation from English to Chinese, and two essays based on topics and texts.
13 July 2001 12:00 AM
What is it? The study of the use of computers, computer-based problems and applications throughout society. This is real nitty-gritty stuff and is not for people who just want new cheat codes for games like Metal Gear Solid.
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