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Psychology AQA A PSYA4 18th June 2012!

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Original post by EffKayy
haha tell me about it.. totally failed it! :frown:


Sure you did fine :smile: I believe your mock went well?
Reply 61
Original post by laurentommo
Sure you did fine :smile: I believe your mock went well?


Yes I got 67/72, however they had nice questions which my teacher predicted that would come up! I'm looking at scraping a 40 now!! Haha life sucks, but retaking won't be the end of the world
Reply 62
I'll be doing Schizophrenia, Addiction and Research methods as selected by our STILL on maternity leave teacher. Why did she have to go and have a baby?! At such an inconvenient time as well :wink:
So now we have a Canadian English teacher doing our lessons. At least our normal teacher has left all the powerpoint/work booklets! xx
Started schizophrenia today wasn't as bad as I thought, a lot of classifying and types of schizophrenics though.
Reply 64
Started some Depression today, with a double psychology lesson. :eek3:

We've just started biological therapies and clinical characteristics of the disorder. It seems to be quite simple so far as much of it is a continuation of Abnormality from PSYA2. :colondollar:
Reply 65
Hey guys. I'm sitting PSYA4 tomorrow! Schizophrenia, Media, and obv RM. Heading for a B, or with luck possibly an A.

Schizophrenia is pretty simple I think - just the classification part at the start, then the biological and psychological explanations and treatments :smile:
Reply 66
Original post by Heyimdec
Started some Depression today, with a double psychology lesson. :eek3:

We've just started biological therapies and clinical characteristics of the disorder. It seems to be quite simple so far as much of it is a continuation of Abnormality from PSYA2. :colondollar:


so youve started studying for paper 4 already?

If so I think I best start myself soon too...im a private candidate and paper 4 is my last paper now but I have no guidance from anyone on studying :colondollar:

ps.

Whats the layout of paper 4 like ? I mean for example with paper 3 it was you have 8 topics and you pick and learn 3 of them to answer; is paper 4 the same? if so what topics do you have a choice from etc?

Sorry for being a pain..I need to take a look at the A2 Spec when I get a chance to understand it lol..
(edited 12 years ago)
Reply 67
Original post by Mephestic
so youve started studying for paper 4 already?

If so I think I best start myself soon too...im a private candidate and paper 4 is my last paper now but I have no guidance from anyone on studying :colondollar:

ps.

Whats the layout of paper 4 like ? I mean for example with paper 3 it was you have 8 topics and you pick and learn 3 of them to answer; is paper 4 the same? if so what topics do you have a choice from etc?

Sorry for being a pain..I need to take a look at the A2 Spec when I get a chance to understand it lol..

You basically HAVE to do research methods (and you gotta apply knowledge here so no essays)
then a choice of two..
our school does addiction and schizohprenia haa
but i havent been to lessons since the exam was over soo :tongue:

good luck
Reply 68
Original post by Mephestic
so youve started studying for paper 4 already?

If so I think I best start myself soon too...im a private candidate and paper 4 is my last paper now but I have no guidance from anyone on studying :colondollar:

ps.

Whats the layout of paper 4 like ? I mean for example with paper 3 it was you have 8 topics and you pick and learn 3 of them to answer; is paper 4 the same? if so what topics do you have a choice from etc?

Sorry for being a pain..I need to take a look at the A2 Spec when I get a chance to understand it lol..


Yeah we've started. You might aswell start early too. :smile:

The paper is nothing like PSYA3, it is split into 3 sections, oh and it's a 2 hour exam.

Section A - 25 marks
You have to study one of the following to answer this section; Schizophrenia, Depression, Phobias, or OCD.

You then answer a 25 mark (unless its changed to 24?) question on one of those topics, similar to a PSYA3 essay.

Section B - 25 marks
You have to study one of the following to answer this section; Media psychology, Addiction, Anomalistic psychology.

You then answer 3 shorter questions totalling 25 marks, these questions vary in size in terms of marks.

Section C - 35 marks
You have no choice on this section, you have to study Research Methods.

Again, it is 7 or 8 smaller questions based on research methods in psychology, which can include statistical tests like Chi-squared, Spearmans rank, etc.


Hope this helps a little bit, here's an example of a previous PSYA4 paper: http://store.aqa.org.uk/qual/gce/pdf/AQA-PSYA4-W-QP-JAN11.PDF

If you have anymore questions, don't hesitate to ask. If I can't answer I'll be sure to ask one of my teachers for you. :smile:


P.s - I'd recommend studying Depression for section A as it is largely similar to Abnormality in PSYA2 and there are only 5 essays to learn for the whole topic! :wink:
I've started research methods - its pretty simple to be honest just expanding on PSYA1 stuff,
and if you do maths A level (or even AS) its just going over stats tests e.g. spearmans rank, chi squared, wilcoxon, etc :smile:

also started depression - just going over the clinical characteristics at the mo which again is pretty easy :smile:

YAY :smile:
Reply 70
My school's chosen;
Schizophrenia
Media Psychology
Research Methods (compulsory)

^ Much like with PSYA3, we seem to be doing the same topics as most other schools - whether it's because they're easier to teach / easier to learn or just because more resources are available for them - I don't know. The teacher who's doing Schizophrenia with us is going away for a few weeks in February though, so she's informed us we'll be learning the research method stuff independently.

Reading about your own research projects - what are people doing? We did them in July 2011 during the gap between exams and Summer - personally I was involved in an obedience study where we investigated whether children would pick up litter when asked by a fellow student, a sixth former or a cleaner. A lot of work goes into these projects actually, informed consent - getting permission from teachers etc.
Reply 71
I'm doing OCD, Addiction and Research methods :biggrin: I'm starting as I mean to go on and have already done a poster on OCD and research methods lol :biggrin:
Reply 72
I'm doing schizophrenia ,media psychology, and reserach methods . Wev'e started classification and diagnosis of schizophrenai so the dsm-4 and icd-10 and for media iv'e done pro and anti social behaviour influence , really liking the topis .as for research methods bring it im solid in my statistics so i'm prepared. Thin king of going ahead and then review it in class is that a good move?????
Just to let you all know what you're getting yourselves into - I had this exam today, and it was ****ing hideous, will deffinatly be ressitting with you all in summer - FML :frown:
Reply 74
Good luck with this exam everybody!

I did it today. Be ware, it isn't the nicest!
Reply 75
I did the PSYA4 yesterday D:
Hopefully it didn't go to badly as if I have to retake the exam it will be on my birthday :'(
They are really interesting topics, my class did schizophrenia, addiction and research methods. But there is so much to learn for the exam and they could ask you anything
Reply 76
Surely it's less to learn for the Schizophrenia / Media Psychology topics? For Schizophrenia - they can only ask on: diagnosis, issues with diagnosis, biological explanations, psychological explanations, biological treatments and psychological treatments (6 bullet points), whereas the PSYA3 topics all had at least 7 bullet points.

On the topic of schizophrenia - anyone have any good films/documentaries to watch about it? I know things like Black Swan can be linked to an extent, but what do other people think?
Reply 77
Original post by SLlewellyn
Surely it's less to learn for the Schizophrenia / Media Psychology topics? For Schizophrenia - they can only ask on: diagnosis, issues with diagnosis, biological explanations, psychological explanations, biological treatments and psychological treatments (6 bullet points), whereas the PSYA3 topics all had at least 7 bullet points.

On the topic of schizophrenia - anyone have any good films/documentaries to watch about it? I know things like Black Swan can be linked to an extent, but what do other people think?


The One That Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest is a fairly decent film for looking at this area of Psychology, it isn't directly linked to Schizophrenia but it features some treatments and symptoms of such disorders. The narrator is also a Schizophrenic apparently.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073486/

Edit: maybe Full Metal Jacket too: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093058/
(edited 12 years ago)
Reply 78
I did this exam on Friday... Schizophrenia (ok..), Anomalistic (too much) and Research Methods (teacher only just finished teaching a day before the exam)...

May as well join this discussion since i'll probs be retaking this in Summer :frown:
Reply 79
What text books are you guys using for PSYA4? With all the spec changes my book is useless...

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