WJEC - PY2 - Case Studies and Research methods

You've already started =O I'm going to start next week. As for the perfect essay for PY2, I haven't got a clue :b I'm just going to try and do a really good essay and give it to my teacher and hope I get really high and then just all my essays similar to that.
Have you completed all the core studies? You know when the exam is?
Got to say though, Rahe study is just so boring xd

This website was a godsend to me - http://tonyryan.net/ contains tips, tricks and example answers for all the questions you may be asked in PY2 (or most of them, at least) - they're worth about 8 marks so it's better to combine what you get in the lessons and text books with these essays but it helped me tremendously (I got an A in the exam last year).

It seems like a hell of a lot, but if you break it down into the bare minimum facts, use flashcards for revision etc, it will really help. And don't get too hung up on remembering the names for alternative evidence etc - it's not necessary, as long as you remember what they found, apparently you don't lose any marks for not remembering the names.

The hardest question is by far the alternative evidence, because it's so easy to get confused, so as soon as you study each piece of research, pick out 4 or 5 alternative evidence studies that will be easy to remember - I think I got rid of my PY2 notes, unfortunately - and learn them, stick them on your bedroom wall, read over them, record them as an mp3 - whatever you can do to help you remember. The rest of the stuff is fairly easy. The exam itself is not hard because it will always be the same questions (the only thing that differs is whether you get two evaluate methodology or two alternative evidence questions), it's the remembering which is the hardest part.

A good memory should see you fine (I didn't do that much revision, to be honest, and got through on a good memory), but I can't stress enough the importance that you DO revise - if nothing else, it'll set you in good stead for PY3 and PY4, where a lot of revision is required.

Thanks! Apparently the model answers on that site aren't 12 marks

Nah like I said, they're 8 marks, but combined with the knowledge you get from textbooks (there is one textbook my teacher says you should avoid like the plague, can't remember the name) and handouts in the lesson should bump it up to an 11 or 12 mark answer

My favourite studies in terms of ease of understanding were Milgram and Asch (mainly because I studied them at GCSE so I had an easy couple of weeks whilst everyone else learned it from scratch), and in terms of interest were Rahe (I'm particularly interested in the psychosomatic field) and Rosenhan, the study on how easy it is to get a diagnosis of mental illness.

The ones I found hardest were Gibson and Walk, because there was loads of alternative evidence to learn, and Buss because there was just so much data for the findings!

Yeah there's a lot for Buss >

Any tips on how to structure the answers?

I love Milgram also <3

Okay, I'll split them up into spoilers otherwise it might be a rather long post

Aims and Context


Procedures


Findings and Conclusions


Evaluate the Methodology...


The Dreaded Alternative Evidence


The most important thing about this exam is (other than revision) time management, and the way in which you decide what order you'll answer in is crucial. I did mine -

1. Alternative evidence
2. Evaluate methodology
3. Evaluate methodology.
4. Procedures
5. Aims and Context
6. Findings and conclusions.

Basically, getting the worst one out of the way first, then doing the three which are the longest and where I thought I had the most chance of getting good marks because they're my strongest points, and then the last two are the shortest questions - and with the findings and conclusions, there's so many statistics to remember that I thought, if I end up making up a load of statistics and missing out on the points here, I might also have wasted time I could have spent working on the other questions.

Hope this has helped!

Okay, I'll split them up into spoilers otherwise it might be a rather long post

Aims and Context


Procedures


Findings and Conclusions


Evaluate the Methodology...


The Dreaded Alternative Evidence


The most important thing about this exam is (other than revision) time management, and the way in which you decide what order you'll answer in is crucial. I did mine -

1. Alternative evidence
2. Evaluate methodology
3. Evaluate methodology.
4. Procedures
5. Aims and Context
6. Findings and conclusions.

Basically, getting the worst one out of the way first, then doing the three which are the longest and where I thought I had the most chance of getting good marks because they're my strongest points, and then the last two are the shortest questions - and with the findings and conclusions, there's so many statistics to remember that I thought, if I end up making up a load of statistics and missing out on the points here, I might also have wasted time I could have spent working on the other questions.

Hope this has helped!

Did you revise the research methods part?
Revision tips?
This exam is stressful haha -_-

I revised the research methods part a bit, but not much at all to be honest - I basically just made sure I knew the definitions of the different things (reliability, validity, confounding variables etc) and the issues that might arise (and trust me, this knowledge will help you SO MUCH for PY3, so if you work hard at it now it'll be worth it). There's not much else you can do.

Revision tips.... lots of past papers and lots of practice essays really. It is stressful but the relief when you've done it is immense!

How do actually learn the info/stats etc?

and how many practices for each possible questions ?

Get a little notebook and keep a glossary, an A-Z of all the important terms and what the definition is (because you can pretty much guarantee you'll be asked for the definition of SOMETHING in the exam), and then an example of an issue of it, and just keep looking through it, making sure you know it

Also, anything you're struggling to remember, make posters and put them up everywhere, in your bedroom, all over your house, your car if you have one - stick up as many as you possibly can and just look at them. Record facts to mp3 and fall asleep listening to them. All of these are tried and tested revision methods

As for how many practices... if your teacher is kind, keep bombarding him/her with them until you have an 11/12 mark essay in every combination (there may be a few you can put less effort into because they've come up before, but I can't remember which ones those are), and then just learn them, as much as you can - condense them into bullet points, stick them on flashcards and posters and paper your bedroom in them!

Can you help me? I don't get the aims and context of Rosenham sane in an insane place