Exam practice
There are various types of questions you may get asked:
- You may get asked to explain virtue theory, or an aspect of it.
- You may be required to evaluate the theory or compare it to another theory.
- You may be asked to apply the theory to one of the issues studied.
The following is an AS exam question written by OCR:
(a) Explain how the idea of the ‘Golden Mean’ is used in Virtue Ethics. [33]
(b) ‘Virtue ethics is an easy system to put into practice.’ Discuss. [17]
This question is from June 2005:
(a) Explain what is meant by Virtue Ethics. [33]
(b) 'Virtue Ethics does not work in practice.' Discuss. [17]
This AS question came up in June 2007:
(a) Explain how Virtue Ethics could be applied to embryo research. [33]
(b) ‘The problem with Virtue Ethics is that it gives no definite answers to moral problems.’ Discuss. [17]
(taken from the OCR website)
We now have an interactive diagram showing how to answer an ethics exam question, The 'structure' of the paragraph will be different for 'ethical theory' questions, but the basic principles are the same. Try filling it in yourself and print out the completed diagram.
