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What is Psychology like at As Level with AQA?

I am thinking of taking Psychology next year, but i'm not sure what it's like or anything..
I took Economics for GCSE without knowing anything about it....BIG MISTAKE. :s-smilie:

So i'm trying to find out a lot about Psychology before i take it.

Has anyone had any experience with AQA Psychology? How difficult did you find it?

Thank you for any responses :smile:

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Reply 1
Original post by Grace_14
I am thinking of taking Psychology next year, but i'm not sure what it's like or anything..
I took Economics for GCSE without knowing anything about it....BIG MISTAKE. :s-smilie:

So i'm trying to find out a lot about Psychology before i take it.

Has anyone had any experience with AQA Psychology? How difficult did you find it?

Thank you for any responses :smile:


I found the first year really really easy. I warmed up to the style of questions asked in the first exam and then BAM! entered the second year and the change is huge! 3 essay questions :frown:The content is really easy in the first year with 1/2 mark questions. Then longer 4-12 markers which are alright. The questions are predictable but you have to read and learn and understand a lot. The people who failed in our year are the people who assumed it was an "easy" course and didn't put in any effort.

What other subjects are you planning on taking?
Reply 2
Original post by YB101
I found the first year really really easy. I warmed up to the style of questions asked in the first exam and then BAM! entered the second year and the change is huge! 3 essay questions :frown:The content is really easy in the first year with 1/2 mark questions. Then longer 4-12 markers which are alright. The questions are predictable but you have to read and learn and understand a lot. The people who failed in our year are the people who assumed it was an "easy" course and didn't put in any effort.

What other subjects are you planning on taking?


I am also taking Chemistry, Biology and Maths Stats, and I figured that Psychology fitted in there pretty well. Thanks for your answer :smile:
I would only take it as a one year course because I am looking to study Medicine and I need Chemistry, Biology and Maths for that, so i don't want to add extra work on.
What sort of grades did you tend to get in GCSE?
Reply 3
ohhh your planning on taking the same subjects as me :h:

i'm doing AQA atm, and although i cant say anything about it compared to other exam boards cause i dunno what theyre like, but i found AS really interesting! theres a good variation in the kind of topics you do, theres a bit of research methods thrown in as well, and at AS its mostly short answer questions in the exam as well, so that okay :biggrin:

watch out though, if you plan on taking it to A2, because you think its gonna be okay, and then they shove three long answer essays in your face! :tongue:
Original post by Grace_14
I am thinking of taking Psychology next year, but i'm not sure what it's like or anything..
I took Economics for GCSE without knowing anything about it....BIG MISTAKE. :s-smilie:

So i'm trying to find out a lot about Psychology before i take it.

Has anyone had any experience with AQA Psychology? How difficult did you find it?

Thank you for any responses :smile:


I dont know if it depends on what kind of teaher you have because my teacher is a real bi*ch... But I would like to say: DON'T CHOOSE IT!

Its terrible and stupid which is why people in my class left it!

All you do is remember case studies (why do I want to hear about peoples lives?) lots of remembering, lots of content to cover, really boring (okay, some stuff is interesting) and AQA are the worst board! they are soooo picky!
It's really interesting. BUT most of the exam consists of remembering details from other peoples experiments/ case studies and describing and evaluating them including research methods and ethics. The actual specification doesn't require you to do your own experiments although we've done a few including replicating psychologists work and and seeing if our results match with theirs among the people in the class.

Like YB101 said, the longest questions at AS are 12 marks. For these I write a page and a bit. On the AS papers there's one of these on each aswell as a couple of 6-10 mark questions. But most of the questions are only a couple-four marks but even some of the four mark questions are split up into 2+2.

In the A2 exams though, there's 3 24 mark questions per paper (2 in the year).

The best way to pass is by doing all the 12 (AS)/24 (A2) mark essays that could possibly come up and memorising them. For my second exam at AS, that's about 25-30!!! BUT some of them are similar meaning that when I was writing them out for the first time, I could mix and match some paragraphs together. But it's not pointless even though only 1 12 marker comes up. You can just write them out but in slightly less detail for the 6-10 mark questions. And for the questions that are only a few marks, you just write out the most relevant paragraph or two of the most relevant 12 marker.
(edited 11 years ago)
Reply 6
Original post by cool pilot dude
I dont know if it depends on what kind of teaher you have because my teacher is a real bi*ch... But I would like to say: DON'T CHOOSE IT!

Its terrible and stupid which is why people in my class left it!

All you do is remember case studies (why do I want to hear about peoples lives?) lots of remembering, lots of content to cover, really boring (okay, some stuff is interesting) and AQA are the worst board! they are soooo picky!


if you dont want to hear about peoples lives, why did you take psychology? people are central to psychology :tongue:
Original post by laurie:)
if you dont want to hear about peoples lives, why did you take psychology? people are central to psychology :tongue:


I wanted to actually learn about psychology if you know what I mean :wink:

I didnt want to learn: X found this;whilst y found this..... However, z found this.... Oh, and dont forget to mention advantages, disadvantages, critiscims, ecological validility for each case study.
Reply 8
Original post by cool pilot dude
I wanted to actually learn about psychology if you know what I mean :wink:

I didnt want to learn: X found this;whilst y found this..... However, z found this.... Oh, and dont forget to mention advantages, disadvantages, critiscims, ecological validility for each case study.


well, if you think about it, how else would you test somebody's knowledge of the subject? i believe they shouldn't have taken out the coursework component, but aside from that, the only way is to get people to memorise and repeat tbh.

its slightly better at A2, because in unit 4, theres a big research methods section where you have to talk about designing your own studies and stuff, and then in the actual essays, we were encouraged to think outside the box in our evaluations and applications of theories and studies, so it felt much more involved this year :h:
Original post by cool pilot dude
I wanted to actually learn about psychology if you know what I mean :wink:

I didnt want to learn: X found this;whilst y found this..... However, z found this.... Oh, and dont forget to mention advantages, disadvantages, critiscims, ecological validility for each case study.


:facepalm:
Reply 10
Im in my first year of psychology and i love it, i do history,rs and ict as well, they go great together.
Reply 11
Original post by Grace_14


I am also taking Chemistry, Biology and Maths Stats, and I figured that Psychology fitted in there pretty well. Thanks for your answer :smile:
I would only take it as a one year course because I am looking to study Medicine and I need Chemistry, Biology and Maths for that, so i don't want to add extra work on.
What sort of grades did you tend to get in GCSE?

Psychology fits perfectly with those subjects! I'm in my final year of taking Chemistry Biology and Psychology and Bio and Psych definitely blend well. Although it definitely is the easiest of the three try not to neglect the subject due to the other subjects which are definitely extremely difficult. It's an easy A :smile:
I got 3As and 7Bs at GCSE
It really depends on the person on how difficult you'll find it. I found it really easy (even to the point that it became boring), but I know some people find it hard. A lot of people don't realise that it involves both essay writing, and I know some people are good at content but are let down by their essay structure.
As for content, some of it is really interesting... I think it's because of the way it's taught at my school (a lot of it is just focused on the exam and putting the information into a 12 marker) that I'm not really enjoying it. The studies you have to learn can get boring, but it is a genuinely interesting subject.
I also take biology and maths and find it goes very well with those subjects :smile:
It's as easy as you make it, really.
I went in thinking it would be quite hard but still doable, then after a month or two, when I really settled in, I realised that it wasn't hard at all. It reminds me of GCSE science but with more content. I say this because I'm using the same revision techniques for Psychology (AQAB) as I did for GCSE Science. I'm only commenting on AS - I haven't started A2 yet.
If you like learning names and dates by the shed load then it's great. Depending on what kind of teacher you have it could either be very interesting or very dry. We had two teachers, and one just taught us facts and dates as on the exam spec, and the other took the time to explain what we were learning and that made it a little more interesting.

A lot of people who do it at A Level find that it puts them off studying it in the future which I think is a great shame as I've just finished my degree and it was awesome!
Original post by xoxAngel_Kxox
If you like learning names and dates by the shed load then it's great. Depending on what kind of teacher you have it could either be very interesting or very dry. We had two teachers, and one just taught us facts and dates as on the exam spec, and the other took the time to explain what we were learning and that made it a little more interesting.

A lot of people who do it at A Level find that it puts them off studying it in the future which I think is a great shame as I've just finished my degree and it was awesome!


But even if you do have a great teacher, isn't degree level psych nothing like it at A-level? Thats what i've heard.
Original post by Clare~Bear
But even if you do have a great teacher, isn't degree level psych nothing like it at A-level? Thats what i've heard.


Completely different yes, but I think that would be true of a degree in anything. A Level provides a foundation of the basic theories, and then the degree builds upon it and takes it a lot further.

Most unis say you don't need to have studied A Level to get on the degree course, which I think says a lot about what they think about it!
Original post by xoxAngel_Kxox
Completely different yes, but I think that would be true of a degree in anything. A Level provides a foundation of the basic theories, and then the degree builds upon it and takes it a lot further.

Most unis say you don't need to have studied A Level to get on the degree course, which I think says a lot about what they think about it!


precisely.

At a-level it's a combination of biology (especially stuff to do with stress responses), maths (the stats involved) and english (wriitng those long answers). Is the same true for the degree?
Original post by Clare~Bear
:facepalm:


What are you fed up about?
Original post by cool pilot dude
What are you fed up about?


That you're annoyed with what alvl psychology is about because you obviously didn't research it before taking the class.

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