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A2 psychology OCR G543 revision thread 2014

Hey there!

this thread is for anyone who is currently studying for the OCR 'Options in Applied Psychology' exam, otherwise known as G543. anyone who has done this exam and would like to give advice then feel welcome!

I don't know about others, but i'm struggling with this exam at the moment, so I thought a thread where we could all talk about the exam would be beneficial.

If anyone has any resources or tips then feel welcome to post them here. Also, post here just for general stuff about this exam :smile:
(edited 10 years ago)

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Reply 1
Original post by jodie.irwin27
Hey there!

this thread is for anyone who is currently studying for the OCR 'Options in Applied Psychology' exam, otherwise known as G543. anyone who has done this exam and would like to give advice then feel welcome!

I don't know about others, but i'm struggling with this exam at the moment, so I thought a thread where we could all talk about the exam would be beneficial.

If anyone has any resources or tips then feel welcome to post them here. Also, post here just for general stuff about this exam :smile:


Keeping my eyes on this thread lol!
Reply 2
Original post by jodie.irwin27
Hey there!

this thread is for anyone who is currently studying for the OCR 'Options in Applied Psychology' exam, otherwise known as G543. anyone who has done this exam and would like to give advice then feel welcome!

I don't know about others, but i'm struggling with this exam at the moment, so I thought a thread where we could all talk about the exam would be beneficial.

If anyone has any resources or tips then feel welcome to post them here. Also, post here just for general stuff about this exam :smile:


Hey :smile:

What options are you doing? We have to do Forensic Psychology and Health and Clinical Psychology. I would have liked to do the Education topic but oh well :tongue:

I think a lot of people are struggling because of the volume of studies that we have to learn...like at the moment if my teacher mentioned the researcher's name and asked me what they researched, I can kind of remember what the research consists of but I have no clue about fine details and the aim of the research hahah!

So far, our class has covered 48 studies out of 75 studies...that's quite scary to think that we have learnt so much already:eek:
Reply 3
Original post by Megan>
Hey :smile:

What options are you doing? We have to do Forensic Psychology and Health and Clinical Psychology. I would have liked to do the Education topic but oh well :tongue:

I think a lot of people are struggling because of the volume of studies that we have to learn...like at the moment if my teacher mentioned the researcher's name and asked me what they researched, I can kind of remember what the research consists of but I have no clue about fine details and the aim of the research hahah!

So far, our class has covered 48 studies out of 75 studies...that's quite scary to think that we have learnt so much already:eek:


I'm doing the same options as you. I think most centres choose these topics as they're probably the most popular career paths. I did a bit of sport psychology in GCSE P.E. and didn't enjoy it. I'm not sure about Educational Psychology but my teacher said it was boring haha.

Yeah the volume of studies is definitely a problem. I think once I've revised them all properly then it should be okay as I often surprise myself with how much I remember! Although I have problems remembering what study goes with what researchers name, but that's nothing difficult to revise!

The main difficulty that I'm finding with this exam is the actual questions. Some of them are worded so weird and I just don't understand what they're asking.. And then there's the problem of having to write 8 essays in the space of 2 hours! Definitely need a lot more practice.

Wow I think my class has only covered about 30! How far have you got then? In forensic psych I've just completed the 'recognising faces' section in 'interviewing witnesses'. In health and clinical psych I'm just starting dysfunctional behaviour.
Reply 4
Original post by jodie.irwin27
I'm doing the same options as you. I think most centres choose these topics as they're probably the most popular career paths. I did a bit of sport psychology in GCSE P.E. and didn't enjoy it. I'm not sure about Educational Psychology but my teacher said it was boring haha.

Yeah the volume of studies is definitely a problem. I think once I've revised them all properly then it should be okay as I often surprise myself with how much I remember! Although I have problems remembering what study goes with what researchers name, but that's nothing difficult to revise!

The main difficulty that I'm finding with this exam is the actual questions. Some of them are worded so weird and I just don't understand what they're asking.. And then there's the problem of having to write 8 essays in the space of 2 hours! Definitely need a lot more practice.

Wow I think my class has only covered about 30! How far have you got then? In forensic psych I've just completed the 'recognising faces' section in 'interviewing witnesses'. In health and clinical psych I'm just starting dysfunctional behaviour.


I think for this exam we've just got to keep going over the research all of the time so that it will come easily to us in June. Ah, the G543 exam could not be on a worse day for me. I've got a 2 and a half hour exam in the morning and then G543 in the afternoon :frown:

I hate the reliability questions for part B. I find that when I'm answering them I'm either waffling or repeating myself. Our lessons are structured pretty well for G543 though. Our teacher gets us to write out the research and then evaluate the methods of the research(lab experiments, mock trials etc), issues with the research(usefulness, validity, reductionism etc) and then evaluate the approaches that the research falls under. After that she makes us fill out about 4/5 grids that she makes for the part B questions. They are great for revision!

Well we've been doing forensic since September and we'll finish it before Christmas and then we're doing health from January until April but we've used a lot of the health research as examples for G544 so we have learnt a lot of them already! For forensic, we're just starting the 'Imprisonment' section from 'After a Guilty Verdict'.

Are you planning on doing Psychology at uni?
Reply 5
Original post by Megan>
I think for this exam we've just got to keep going over the research all of the time so that it will come easily to us in June. Ah, the G543 exam could not be on a worse day for me. I've got a 2 and a half hour exam in the morning and then G543 in the afternoon :frown:

I hate the reliability questions for part B. I find that when I'm answering them I'm either waffling or repeating myself. Our lessons are structured pretty well for G543 though. Our teacher gets us to write out the research and then evaluate the methods of the research(lab experiments, mock trials etc), issues with the research(usefulness, validity, reductionism etc) and then evaluate the approaches that the research falls under. After that she makes us fill out about 4/5 grids that she makes for the part B questions. They are great for revision!

Well we've been doing forensic since September and we'll finish it before Christmas and then we're doing health from January until April but we've used a lot of the health research as examples for G544 so we have learnt a lot of them already! For forensic, we're just starting the 'Imprisonment' section from 'After a Guilty Verdict'.

Are you planning on doing Psychology at uni?


Ah that sucks! I don't mind questions relating to reliability and validity, it's just when they say 'successfulness' or 'usefulness' .. I'm not sure whether to evaluate the studies normally or only state why they're useful or successful... eh I don't know.

Have you looked at the debates in psychology yet? Cause sometimes when I'm answering question B, I often want to relate my answer to some of the debates but we haven't gone over those yet.

Your lessons sound good haha, I have two teachers, one just goes over the research and gets us to evaluate and stuff, where as the other teacher goes over the research and then makes us do tasks to help our memory such as doing mind maps from our memory then in another colour pen adding information that we forgot. It's really good cause it helps me to remember the studies really well, especially the figures and data!

And yup i'm gonna be doing psychology at uni, what about you?
Reply 6
Original post by jodie.irwin27
Ah that sucks! I don't mind questions relating to reliability and validity, it's just when they say 'successfulness' or 'usefulness' .. I'm not sure whether to evaluate the studies normally or only state why they're useful or successful... eh I don't know.

Have you looked at the debates in psychology yet? Cause sometimes when I'm answering question B, I often want to relate my answer to some of the debates but we haven't gone over those yet.

Your lessons sound good haha, I have two teachers, one just goes over the research and gets us to evaluate and stuff, where as the other teacher goes over the research and then makes us do tasks to help our memory such as doing mind maps from our memory then in another colour pen adding information that we forgot. It's really good cause it helps me to remember the studies really well, especially the figures and data!

And yup i'm gonna be doing psychology at uni, what about you?


Yeah we've done all of the debates, all of the issues and we have almost finished doing the methods. I usually end up relating my answers for section B to determinism vs. free-will debate...mainly because it's pretty relevant when it comes to criminal behaviour and it is easy to explain :tongue:

Ah that sounds good :smile: I might try doing that actually when I start revising the research properly. And yeah, I'm going to be doing psych at uni too :smile: Have you had any offers yet?
Reply 7
Original post by Megan>
Yeah we've done all of the debates, all of the issues and we have almost finished doing the methods. I usually end up relating my answers for section B to determinism vs. free-will debate...mainly because it's pretty relevant when it comes to criminal behaviour and it is easy to explain :tongue:

Ah that sounds good :smile: I might try doing that actually when I start revising the research properly. And yeah, I'm going to be doing psych at uni too :smile: Have you had any offers yet?


wow you've done a lot! so really, if i'm correct, all you have left to do is health and clinical psychology and you have about 5 months left to do that?! :|

and I have all of my offers back ^.^ I applied to Bangor (2 courses), Cardiff, Bristol and UWE. where have you applied and have you had any offers?


by the way, do you have any useful resources for this exam? because I used to use psychexchange to find resources for last year, but this year the website has changed and the search isn't as specific.. so I can't find anything :/ and I could really do with the extra resources!
Reply 8
Original post by jodie.irwin27
wow you've done a lot! so really, if i'm correct, all you have left to do is health and clinical psychology and you have about 5 months left to do that?! :|

and I have all of my offers back ^.^ I applied to Bangor (2 courses), Cardiff, Bristol and UWE. where have you applied and have you had any offers?


by the way, do you have any useful resources for this exam? because I used to use psychexchange to find resources for last year, but this year the website has changed and the search isn't as specific.. so I can't find anything :/ and I could really do with the extra resources!


Pretty much, yeah :tongue: We started G544 the lesson after our G542 exam so we've almost finish the prep for that exam because section A is basically what we did last year for G541 so we only go over that stuff once every 2 weeks. Then we do the section B stuff for G544 twice a week and G543 stuff twice a week. So once we've finished the methods, I'm guessing we'll just be doing the Health and Clinical stuff every lesson so we could finish that even earlier:eek: My teacher has already started doing revision sessions after school hahah!

Ooh, nice!! Congrats :smile: I've got offers from University of Birmingham, Aston University, University of Leicester, University of Liverpool and I'm still waiting to hear from University of Nottingham :smile:

My teacher usually gives us lots of resources from past pupils who got A*s in their exams so I usually just use them for revision but I also get some stuff from Get Revising. I think exam technique is a big deal for this exam (well, any exam in Psychology :tongue:) because we always have to structure responses like: Point, Explain, Example, Counter Argument and Conclusion. It gets pretty repetitive but it gets good grades :biggrin: And a lot of people drop marks because they don't link their example back to the question and only 'name drop' pieces of research because they don't go into enough depth when giving examples.

Last year, my life pretty much revolved around holah.co.uk (that's a total exaggeration! But it was a lifesaver :biggrin:)...I wish there was an A2 version of it:frown:
Reply 9
Original post by Megan>
Pretty much, yeah :tongue: We started G544 the lesson after our G542 exam so we've almost finish the prep for that exam because section A is basically what we did last year for G541 so we only go over that stuff once every 2 weeks. Then we do the section B stuff for G544 twice a week and G543 stuff twice a week. So once we've finished the methods, I'm guessing we'll just be doing the Health and Clinical stuff every lesson so we could finish that even earlier:eek: My teacher has already started doing revision sessions after school hahah!

Ooh, nice!! Congrats :smile: I've got offers from University of Birmingham, Aston University, University of Leicester, University of Liverpool and I'm still waiting to hear from University of Nottingham :smile:

My teacher usually gives us lots of resources from past pupils who got A*s in their exams so I usually just use them for revision but I also get some stuff from Get Revising. I think exam technique is a big deal for this exam (well, any exam in Psychology :tongue:) because we always have to structure responses like: Point, Explain, Example, Counter Argument and Conclusion. It gets pretty repetitive but it gets good grades :biggrin: And a lot of people drop marks because they don't link their example back to the question and only 'name drop' pieces of research because they don't go into enough depth when giving examples.

Last year, my life pretty much revolved around holah.co.uk (that's a total exaggeration! But it was a lifesaver :biggrin:)...I wish there was an A2 version of it:frown:


wow you must feel so relaxed by nearly finishing and having so long left! The G544 exam does seem like it's not that complicated to revise cause we did most of it last year, it's just recapping and adding a few things. So it shouldn't take too long really.

ahh congrats! hope Nottingham get back to you soon haha. Which one do you think you want to go to the most?

hmm, I don't think anyone in my school has ever got an A* in A-level psychology lol... Although to be fair the psychology classes have ranged from having only 3-9 people in them! I was hoping to get an A* overall but the way that this G543 is going, I'm not counting on it.

I think i'm gonna check out get revising though :smile:. How do you structure the question B's then?
Reply 10
Original post by jodie.irwin27
wow you must feel so relaxed by nearly finishing and having so long left! The G544 exam does seem like it's not that complicated to revise cause we did most of it last year, it's just recapping and adding a few things. So it shouldn't take too long really.

ahh congrats! hope Nottingham get back to you soon haha. Which one do you think you want to go to the most?

hmm, I don't think anyone in my school has ever got an A* in A-level psychology lol... Although to be fair the psychology classes have ranged from having only 3-9 people in them! I was hoping to get an A* overall but the way that this G543 is going, I'm not counting on it.

I think i'm gonna check out get revising though :smile:. How do you structure the question B's then?


To be honest, I'm pretty relaxed right now when it comes to this exam :tongue: I feel like I've got a lot of time to revise!! Yeah G544 is pretty straightforward :smile:

Hahah, got an offer from Nottingham today! Woo! So now I have all 5 offers :biggrin: I really want to go to Aston University because 1 year work placement is included on the course which I think is so good! I'm probably going to put University of Birmingham as my insured choice. How about you?

Ah, those are really small class sizes! In my Psychology class there are 10 people and there are 11 people in the other A2 Psychology class at my sixth form. I really want an A* too! Stay positive! As long as you start revising early and nail the exam technique, you'll be on track to get an A*.

I'll show you how I structure my answers for section B :smile: This was one of my points for "Discuss the extent to which upbringing can explain criminal behaviour". I got full marks on that essay hahah :P Red = Point, Green = Explain, Blue = Example, Purple = Counter Argument and Black = Conclusion. And for 15 mark essays, you have to make four points...this was my first point :tongue:

"Upbringing provides us with a lot of information which is useful in developing an explanation of criminal behaviour. Firstly, much research that focuses on the effects of upbringing on criminal behaviour gathers quantitative data. This strengthens the explanation of criminal behaviour as it yields numerical, objective data which will therefore minimalise the chance of bias affecting the results. This will then increase the internal validity of the research as the researchers will be more likely to be measuring what they aim to measure. Also, quantitative data enables the researcher to make easy comparisons between results which allows for reliable conclusions to be drawn. Farrington’s research documented offending behaviour from childhood to adulthood and looked at the effect of upbringing on criminal behaviour. Reliable conclusions were made stating that one of the most important risk factors that could lead an individual to crime is the family. Farrington gathered quantitative data from participant’s criminal records by looking at the number of offences that each participant had made and the age that they committed the offence. However quantitative data is reductionist in its very nature because it restricts the amount of information that an individual can provide. Not all individuals who have committed a crime will have been caught and by making conclusions from unreliable data can cause the conclusions to be invalid. Overall, the data is considered to be reductionist and can lead to invalid conclusions yet it is objective so cause and effect can be established which can lead to explanations of the effects of upbringing on criminal behaviour."

Obviously I wouldn't be able to write that much in the exam but I use that kind of stuff as model answers :smile:
Original post by Megan>
To be honest, I'm pretty relaxed right now when it comes to this exam :tongue: I feel like I've got a lot of time to revise!! Yeah G544 is pretty straightforward :smile:

Hahah, got an offer from Nottingham today! Woo! So now I have all 5 offers :biggrin: I really want to go to Aston University because 1 year work placement is included on the course which I think is so good! I'm probably going to put University of Birmingham as my insured choice. How about you?

Ah, those are really small class sizes! In my Psychology class there are 10 people and there are 11 people in the other A2 Psychology class at my sixth form. I really want an A* too! Stay positive! As long as you start revising early and nail the exam technique, you'll be on track to get an A*.

I'll show you how I structure my answers for section B :smile: This was one of my points for "Discuss the extent to which upbringing can explain criminal behaviour". I got full marks on that essay hahah :P Red = Point, Green = Explain, Blue = Example, Purple = Counter Argument and Black = Conclusion. And for 15 mark essays, you have to make four points...this was my first point :tongue:

"Upbringing provides us with a lot of information which is useful in developing an explanation of criminal behaviour. Firstly, much research that focuses on the effects of upbringing on criminal behaviour gathers quantitative data. This strengthens the explanation of criminal behaviour as it yields numerical, objective data which will therefore minimalise the chance of bias affecting the results. This will then increase the internal validity of the research as the researchers will be more likely to be measuring what they aim to measure. Also, quantitative data enables the researcher to make easy comparisons between results which allows for reliable conclusions to be drawn. Farrington’s research documented offending behaviour from childhood to adulthood and looked at the effect of upbringing on criminal behaviour. Reliable conclusions were made stating that one of the most important risk factors that could lead an individual to crime is the family. Farrington gathered quantitative data from participant’s criminal records by looking at the number of offences that each participant had made and the age that they committed the offence. However quantitative data is reductionist in its very nature because it restricts the amount of information that an individual can provide. Not all individuals who have committed a crime will have been caught and by making conclusions from unreliable data can cause the conclusions to be invalid. Overall, the data is considered to be reductionist and can lead to invalid conclusions yet it is objective so cause and effect can be established which can lead to explanations of the effects of upbringing on criminal behaviour."

Obviously I wouldn't be able to write that much in the exam but I use that kind of stuff as model answers :smile:


oh wow congrats on getting your final offer!!
I'm not sure about my firm and insurance haha. I'm stuck between Cardiff and Bangor. Cardiff simply because I live here, love the city and I'd wanna get a job as a psychologist in Cardiff so it would probably be most beneficial to use the universities industrial links, and Bangor because it's such a small town that everything is local and convenient and it just seems like a nice place and I can image myself doing better there. Problem is though that if I chose Bangor as my firm then I won't have an insurance because Bangor's offer is the lowest! ahh so stuck haha.

That example is really helpful, thank you so much! Would you then talk about the other 2 studies, Sutherland and Wikstrom?

And also, questions such as "Evaluate the usefulness of research surrounding witness interviews. (15)" often confuse me. Whenever they use the word usefulness, I just get confused and assume that they're talking about the applications that the study has, for example 'it can help to improve accurate identification of criminal faces'. I know this is wrong but I just don't understand the question very well! sigh, once I get over this then I can get my exam technique done and dusted! I have a lot of work to do for this exam... haha
(edited 10 years ago)
Reply 12
Original post by jodie.irwin27
oh wow congrats on getting your final offer!!
I'm not sure about my firm and insurance haha. I'm stuck between Cardiff and Bangor. Cardiff simply because I live here, love the city and I'd wanna get a job as a psychologist in Cardiff so it would probably be most beneficial to use the universities industrial links, and Bangor because it's such a small town that everything is local and convenient and it just seems like a nice place and I can image myself doing better there. Problem is though that if I chose Bangor as my firm then I won't have an insurance because Bangor's offer is the lowest! ahh so stuck haha.

That example is really helpful, thank you so much! Would you then talk about the other 2 studies, Sutherland and Wikstrom?

And also, questions such as "Evaluate the usefulness of research surrounding witness interviews. (15)" often confuse me. Whenever they use the word usefulness, I just get confused and assume that they're talking about the applications that the study has, for example 'it can help to improve accurate identification of criminal faces'. I know this is wrong but I just don't understand the question very well! sigh, once I get over this then I can get my exam technique done and dusted! I have a lot of work to do for this exam... haha


Hahah, that's literally why I want to go to universities in Birmingham! I live just outside of Birmingham and I would ideally want to work around here in the future :smile: Ah, well you've got plenty of time to decide!! A lot of my friends like Cardiff Uni.

No problem! Yeah, I used Sutherland as an example for my point about it being reductionist and I used Wikstrom twice for my points about it being deterministic and how it relies on the self-report method.

Well, for "Assess the usefulness of qualitative and quantitative data when creating a profile" (I don't think you've got that far yet for Forensic), you just do a strength and a weakness of qualitative data and then you do the same for quantitative data but you have to keep referring back to usefulness. Usually when questions refer to the 'usefulness', I just say at the end of my explanations "...this will increase/decrease the usefulness of (the research/the section) as it will strengthen/limit our understanding of criminal behaviour." A good usefulness strength or weakness is whether practical applications can be developed or not. If they can be developed, I usually say something along the lines of "A strength is that practical applications can be developed. This is a strength because it can lead to therapies that can be used in day to day life which will increase the usefulness of the research as practical applications improve the lives of many individuals which is the main aim of psychological research."
Original post by Megan>
Hahah, that's literally why I want to go to universities in Birmingham! I live just outside of Birmingham and I would ideally want to work around here in the future :smile: Ah, well you've got plenty of time to decide!! A lot of my friends like Cardiff Uni.

No problem! Yeah, I used Sutherland as an example for my point about it being reductionist and I used Wikstrom twice for my points about it being deterministic and how it relies on the self-report method.

Well, for "Assess the usefulness of qualitative and quantitative data when creating a profile" (I don't think you've got that far yet for Forensic), you just do a strength and a weakness of qualitative data and then you do the same for quantitative data but you have to keep referring back to usefulness. Usually when questions refer to the 'usefulness', I just say at the end of my explanations "...this will increase/decrease the usefulness of (the research/the section) as it will strengthen/limit our understanding of criminal behaviour." A good usefulness strength or weakness is whether practical applications can be developed or not. If they can be developed, I usually say something along the lines of "A strength is that practical applications can be developed. This is a strength because it can lead to therapies that can be used in day to day life which will increase the usefulness of the research as practical applications improve the lives of many individuals which is the main aim of psychological research."


No I haven't got that far yet but you see, if I did get that question I think I'd be fine because its way more specific that just generally 'discuss the usefulness of research'. hmm I just need to do loads of question B's and see how I get on. And that's actually such an easy and simple way to keep referring back to the question. Thank you so much for your help ^.^.

By the way, do you write introductions for each essay?
Okay so I have some resources that I managed to find on the new psychexchange website. I haven't gone through them all properly, but I thought I'd post them for anyone to have a look at. They're a mixture of model answers, revision booklets and tips on exam techniques.

I can't actually upload the booklets but if you want them then pm me with your email address :smile:

I usually go through them all and extract the useful information and summarise it all on another document, cause some of the stuff on the resources aren't useful to me, but they may be to you.

first are the model answers :smile:
(edited 10 years ago)
here's the exam techniques, revision techniques and misc stuff.

for the third resource, I thought it'd be helpful to write a definition of each key word so that you can differentiate between all of them.

also for the last one, it needs to be updated. I usually do this myself but I'm not going to do it soon, probably after my january mocks. :smile:
(edited 10 years ago)
Does anyone have the June 2013 paper?
Hey could you all do me a massive favour and fill out this questionnaire its for uni dissertation!!! Very Important please be a star thank you all
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Reply 18
Original post by moment of truth
Does anyone have the June 2013 paper?


Hey yeah I do!

What section would you like? Forensic & health ??
Original post by Sumena
Hey yeah I do!

What section would you like? Forensic & health ??


Yes please that would be great! :wink:

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