A level Pyschology

Hey, i'm planning on doing a level psychology. But i can't rememmber what the course consisted of like exams coursework and the way you get asessed. So can all you guys tell me about and rate it difficulty as well.

:biggrin:

Reply 1

roflcakes1

It might depend on what exam board you're on.
I'm doing AQA psychology, where you have two 90 minute exams at AS - normally one in January and one in the Summer, each 50%.
I think A2 is the same, but the exams are 2 hours long.
I found the course quite easy, but I know a lot of people were let down my their essay structures, not necessarily the content. There is a lot of detailed content to learn, but not difficult in terms of actually understanding the content.

Reply 2

DefaultSkin

Yeah i'm doing aqa too :biggrin:

. What were exams based on.

Reply 3

SpicyStrawberry

It will be assessed with exams, you'll have to download the course specification from the AQA website (I believe there are two - A and B - but you will study one of them).

Reply 4

roflcakes1

For AS:
The first exam is research methods, developmental psychology, and memory, all worth 24 marks.
The second exams is on abnormality (e.g. the biological approach to mental illness), stress, and social influence (e.g. conformity, obedience) in the same format.
I don't know what the format is for the A2 exam yet, but I assume it's similar just with more marks for each unit.
This is for the A course though, you might be doing B :smile:

Reply 5

cdoyle

I did AS AQA A. Content- attachment (babies and their mother, lack/loss of mother figure, survival), memory- short term long term memory their capacities, encoding, retrieval, eye witness testimony- court evidence, is eye witness testimony reliable), research methods- qualitative and quantitative data, methods of selecting participants, ethics- lieing about the genuine reason for a study, informed consent, reliability, validity. stress- hormones involved, strategies to cope, stress and the immune system. social psychology- conformity to peers, influences, obedience to authority like policemen. Abnormality- 4 approaches that provide possible explanations. definition of abnormality, therapies to treat abnormality arising from the approaches.

I'm starting A2 this September. more research methods- peer review, statistical tests, replicability, drawing on knowledge of AS research methods, choose three from 8 topics such as aggression, perception, sleep, relationships, eating disorders, intelligence and learning- theories for. last unit- media psychology, violence addictive behaviour- gambling.
A2 exams are essays whereas AS are more short answers. 3 +3 marks. Paper in June 2012 for both units began with Outline....

Reply 6

DefaultSkin

Would you say it;s difficult then?

Reply 7

cdoyle

Original post by luqman15

Would you say it;s difficult then?

not really. Just a lot to learn. I had to learn 80% of unit 2 in 6 days because unit 1 took up a lot of my time. Getting my AS result next week so will see then.

Reply 8

Howbeit

I did AQA Psychology with an exam in January (1:30 hours) and one in July (2:00 hours) both of which were worth 50%. I did the subject areas of aggression, eating disorders and schizophrenia. There are 6/7 subjects to choose from I believe but my school only learned 3. Psychology A level isn't complex but it is a little bit of a memory test, and you need to be able to write good essays. Apart from that, if you think you'll enjoy the subject then take it! I certainly did :smile:

This was posted from The Student Room's Android App on my HTC Desire S

Reply 9

DefaultSkin

Original post by cdoyle

not really. Just a lot to learn. I had to learn 80% of unit 2 in 6 days because unit 1 took up a lot of my time. Getting my AS result next week so will see then.

hopefully you get the grade you'll like, i had a look at the specification and it was really confusing, is it just me or is it okay.

Reply 10

cdoyle

Original post by luqman15

hopefully you get the grade you'll like, i had a look at the specification and it was really confusing, is it just me or is it okay.

aww thanks I hope so too. really want an A, i have 4A 2C already at AS. lol. I looked at the A2 syllabus and it looks confusing and I have done AS so dont worry. I was going to self teach it but think I'll just enrol on a night class somewhere as I self taught for a repeat one year of a different subject- didnt go well. think I overworked....