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What's Psychology A-Level like?

Hi! I'm starting A-Levels in September. I've almost completed Psychology GCSE but what is the A-Level like?
I'll also be studying Philosophy, Religious Studies and Sociology

Edit: It's AQA Psychology and that's all I know. I think all of them are AQA
(edited 10 years ago)

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It depends which exam board it'll be with, psychology is a very broad subject and different exam boards do different topics!
Depends on the exam board, for OCR you get a mix of experimental methods but I believe it's dumbed down a little compared to other exam boards, and you also look at case studies, at AS this focuses more on reviewing methodology and at A2 it's pretty much the same but it's spun as focusing on the theories and there is a lot more to learn (if you think at any point you might do 4 A2's, you don't want this to be one of them.)
Reply 3
Avatar for laura0701
laura0701
13
Original post by chelseajanet
Hi! I'm starting A-Levels in September. I've almost completed Psychology GCSE but what is the A-Level like?
I'll also be studying Philosophy, Religious Studies and Sociology


I do Psychology, RS and Sociology (and History :rolleyes:) too and I enjoy all three!

I do the AQA Psychology A so I can't really speak much about any other spec, but I personally find it pretty interesting. The first unit we did was memory, attachment and research methods. Personally I found it a bit dry but there were some good parts, like cognitive interviews and how they're used in crime witnesses etc.

I'm currently doing unit 2 which I find a lot more enjoyable! You do stress, social psych and abnormality, with research methods again.

I think psych has a nice mixture of sciency bits and also a few essays too - it gives me a nice break from my other heavily essay based subjects. :smile:
Original post by auralay
I do Psychology, RS and Sociology (and History :rolleyes:) too and I enjoy all three!

I do the AQA Psychology A so I can't really speak much about any other spec, but I personally find it pretty interesting. The first unit we did was memory, attachment and research methods. Personally I found it a bit dry but there were some good parts, like cognitive interviews and how they're used in crime witnesses etc.

I'm currently doing unit 2 which I find a lot more enjoyable! You do stress, social psych and abnormality, with research methods again.

I think psych has a nice mixture of sciency bits and also a few essays too - it gives me a nice break from my other heavily essay based subjects. :smile:


I study AQA Psychology A and I'm finding this unit (unit 2) so so interesting! Social psychology has been a bit difficult for me though!
Reply 5
Avatar for S4LM4N
S4LM4N
19
AQA AS Psychology is piss easy if you just revise. The questions don't really trick you, and the content is very interesting.


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edit: I take this back! I got a C! LMAO
(edited 10 years ago)
Reply 6
Avatar for Pennithomas
Pennithomas
If its ocr don't do it it's the most tedious and pointless subject and I fully regret taking it😕


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Reply 7
Avatar for laura0701
laura0701
13
Original post by lauraaaaa
I study AQA Psychology A and I'm finding this unit (unit 2) so so interesting! Social psychology has been a bit difficult for me though!


Yeah, I have to say this unit is so much better than the last one! It's just the social change bit of Social Psych I'm struggling a bit with. Milgram's study is certainly interesting though :eek:
Original post by auralay
Yeah, I have to say this unit is so much better than the last one! It's just the social change bit of Social Psych I'm struggling a bit with. Milgram's study is certainly interesting though :eek:


That could have been me writing that comment, totally agree!
Reply 9
Avatar for 3607
3607
AQA:

PSYA1 - Boring
PSYA2 - Really interesting

Overall: It's not hard per se, but there's a lot to remember. I'm horribly behind on PSYA1 revision, I've done memory and I'm up to the strange situation (going in order on the specification).

I'd advise you to take it, but MAKE NOTES AS YOU GO ALONG!
Original post by 3607
AQA:

PSYA1 - Boring
PSYA2 - Really interesting

Overall: It's not hard per se, but there's a lot to remember. I'm horribly behind on PSYA1 revision, I've done memory and I'm up to the strange situation (going in order on the specification).

I'd advise you to take it, but MAKE NOTES AS YOU GO ALONG!


Did you do PSYA2 first/in January instead?
Reply 11
Avatar for dlaiden
dlaiden
11
I do Psychology and Philosophy (that is, AQA, and not OCR Philosophy and Ethics). Psychology is fun and interesting, but as the others said it involves a lot of note-taking. There's so much information, which is doubled at A2, so you need to make sure you get everything down so revision time is much easier. Philosophy is absolutely brilliant, but also notoriously dodgy in marking. I advise you to read the past papers, mark scheme and examiner's comments from day one so that you know what you're doing in your essays. And try to complete as many essays as possible (you can make up your own questions) once you've been taught how to write them, so that you can hand them in to your teacher and get some feedback. :smile:
I agree with laura. I found PSYA1 quite boring, just memorise the info and you'll be fine
I am due to sit PSYA2 in june. Its way more interesting but involves applying info to scenarios.

Tips
-make really good notes in class: don't think you dont need to because you'll find it online. WRONG. different centres do different case studies so you need to be sure on yours.
-get a good textbook: this will help at home if you get stuck - get the one for Pyschology AQA A or B depending on which one your centre does
-revision: make revision material as you go along. DONT WAIT TILL THE END. It takes so long as there is so much content. I learnt that the hard way
-exam technique:get familiar with exam style early on. We only went over it near the end of the course and it was hard to adapt.

You'll enjoy though. It's a really interesting subject and you can apply it to real life.
Reply 13
Avatar for 3607
3607
Original post by lauraaaaa
Did you do PSYA2 first/in January instead?


Nah, doing them both in June, but I have half-term to revise for PSYA2 and my only other exam after half-term is PHYA2. PHYA1 makes me want to watch golf, and I really really hate golf!
PSYA1- You learn about memory, attachment and the basics of research methods. This is the easiest paper.

PSYA2-You learn about abnormality, stress and social psychology. Social psychology in particular is really interesting because you understand a bit more about why people obey authority even when they know that this authority is telling them to do something wrong.

PSYA3-I found this one the hardest. There are 8 big topics, and you choose 3 topics to answer an essay question on in the exam. The topics I learned were aggression, relationships and eating behaviours. Relationships is an easy-ish one to do because a lot of the time the research fits in with personal experience and just makes sense. In eating you learn about an eating disorder- either anorexia or bulimia- which was really interesting, and in aggression you learn a bit about domestic violence, biological/evolutionary explanations of violence etc. This paper is the hardest because within the 3 topics you learn, there are about 6 or 7 sub-topics and they could ask you for a 24 mark essay question on any of them, which leaves you having to learn about 20 essays and only being asked to write 3 of them. There's also quite a big focus in this paper on being able to give appropriate examples of research and evaluate it.

PSYA4-I'm doing this one in a few weeks. It's the synoptic paper, so you use the skills you've learned throughout the whole course. There's a research methods section but you'll be expected to know more about research methods than you did at PSYA1. There's a section about application of psychology in the real world, which has shorter questions (about 4-6 marks each). We're doing media psychology for that but there are other things to choose from. You also choose one "pathology" out of schizophrenia, depression, OCD or phobias, and are asked to write an essay on that.

Psychology is a brilliant subject, the gap in difficulty between AS and A2 is massive but it's amazing to be learning about how the mind works.
Original post by 3607
Nah, doing them both in June, but I have half-term to revise for PSYA2 and my only other exam after half-term is PHYA2. PHYA1 makes me want to watch golf, and I really really hate golf!


Ah right, just because people normally do unit 1 in January is all. I feel it will be the easier of the two!
Reply 16
Avatar for 3607
3607
Original post by lauraaaaa
Ah right, just because people normally do unit 1 in January is all. I feel it will be the easier of the two!


I reckon it's easier, but because I hate it I'm going to do worse because I haven't started revising it till really late haha. So so dull
Original post by 3607
I reckon it's easier, but because I hate it I'm going to do worse because I haven't started revising it till really late haha. So so dull


I found it fairly easy and luckily my grade reflected that. Not too sure about unit 2 though, social psychology isn't my friend!
Reply 18
Avatar for 3607
3607
Original post by lauraaaaa
I found it fairly easy and luckily my grade reflected that. Not too sure about unit 2 though, social psychology isn't my friend!


Yeah, I'm not a fan of social influence, my favourite's individual differences. What'd you get? In UMS terms?
Original post by 3607
Yeah, I'm not a fan of social influence, my favourite's individual differences. What'd you get? In UMS terms?


Mine too! 100UMS

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