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Opinions on A-Level Psychology?

Looking at taking Psychology at A-Level and I would like to hear how people find it and if they did well etc.

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Original post by Meg321
Looking at taking Psychology at A-Level and I would like to hear how people find it and if they did well etc.

Posted from TSR Mobile



Hi!

I'm a Psychology undergraduate student who'll be entering my final year of study come September of this year.

I did Psychology at A Level from 2011-2012 and came out with a B Grade. I really enjoyed the course! You get to learn many interesting things and develop numerous skills especially that of research methods.

However, when it comes to the exams you must feel comfortable with essay writing as there is a lot of it and be good at memorising a lot of text!

If you have any specific questions feel free to ask away!

Daniel
Reply 2
Original post by DanielMathias94
Hi!

I'm a Psychology undergraduate student who'll be entering my final year of study come September of this year.

I did Psychology at A Level from 2011-2012 and came out with a B Grade. I really enjoyed the course! You get to learn many interesting things and develop numerous skills especially that of research methods.

However, when it comes to the exams you must feel comfortable with essay writing as there is a lot of it and be good at memorising a lot of text!

If you have any specific questions feel free to ask away!

Daniel


Thank you, I think I'm definitely going to be taking it for A-Level, I'm curious as to how you went about memorising the large amounts of text?

Also I am looking at my options for University as I am eager to go but I'm not certain of which career path I want to pursue yet, I'm hoping I will figure it out by the time I come to apply. Anyway how do you find Psychology at University for future reference? Is it easier or harder than you expected it and how did it compare to A-Level?

Good luck with the rest of your time at uni!

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Hey,

I have just got my results for A level psychology (edexcel, not many schools choose this exam board for some reason), and I got an A grade.

I would definitely recommend studying psychology at A level because it tests essay writing skills as well as practicing research methods and statistics so it will tie in to many other subject areas. It is a lot more challenging than non-psychology students would have you believe as there is a lot of memorizing dates, results, conclusions etc.

Even though I am not going to study psychology at university it was still worth studying! Just make sure that it helps you in the future, e.g. if you are going to study medicine and need to do bio, chem, maths, physics just make sure you are aware of your options. Otherwise enjoy studying psych :smile:
Reply 4
Original post by algorithm
Just completed AS AQA Psychology and managed an A.

I actually like psychology but it's a hell of a lot of work (especially at A2 from what I've heard/read).

Like the poster before said, it's a lot of memorising! All the memorising and exam technique is so dull, but I suppose the actual content of what we learn is quite interesting.

For me, how I memorised was that I basically wrote out a lot of model answers... and then I just, well, memorised them lol. I don't really use mnemonics and stuff like that cause I just found it fine to read the model answers, then try and type/write them out from memory paragraph by paragraph.

There's this guy called Saj Devshi who writes e-book/pdf model answers for AQA Psychology. They're very helpful cause they show you the layout and save you having to write them for yourself :P His website is loopa.co.uk if you're interested!

Good luck at A Level! What other subjects are you choosing?


Yes, I've heard its a lot of work but from what I've read it seems so interesting. Thank you, when the time comes I will try that out for memorising information.

The website sounds great I will look that up when I need to.

I am also looking at doing-
Maths
English lit
And Philosophy

I was considering doing Biology but I don't feel I enjoy it enough at GCSE level to pursue it any further.

Good luck with A2!

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Do you know what exam board the school your going to offers? I have just done my AS psychology with OCR and really enjoyed the course. I got an A. It is a lot of work to memorise everything (for my exam board I had to remember 15 studies in detail as well as four research methods) however it is manageable as long as you put the work in early. It's much easier to remember things if you write detailed notes the first time around- I got an A with little revision coming up to the exams as I had worked hard continuously throughout the year and so could remember most of the information I needed. In terms of exam structure it varied- there were some longer answer questions (longest was 12 marks) however in AS I never needed to write any essays as such. I'm not sure what it's going to be like in A2 yet.

Hope this helps and feel free to ask any questions. :smile:
Reply 6
Original post by asixthformer
Hey,

I have just got my results for A level psychology (edexcel, not many schools choose this exam board for some reason), and I got an A grade.

I would definitely recommend studying psychology at A level because it tests essay writing skills as well as practicing research methods and statistics so it will tie in to many other subject areas. It is a lot more challenging than non-psychology students would have you believe as there is a lot of memorizing dates, results, conclusions etc.

Even though I am not going to study psychology at university it was still worth studying! Just make sure that it helps you in the future, e.g. if you are going to study medicine and need to do bio, chem, maths, physics just make sure you are aware of your options. Otherwise enjoy studying psych :smile:


Hi :smile: our school is doing edexcel as well! How did you find the exams?? I always run out of time in essay based exams:angry: Also, is it actually important to memorize dates/names,results because I suck at that :frown:
Original post by DanielMathias94
Hi!

I'm a Psychology undergraduate student who'll be entering my final year of study come September of this year.

I did Psychology at A Level from 2011-2012 and came out with a B Grade. I really enjoyed the course! You get to learn many interesting things and develop numerous skills especially that of research methods.

Daniel

I'm looking at doing psychology at uni. How much maths is involved?:K:
What type of psychology course did you do? anything else with it?
Reply 8
Original post by Claros
Do you know what exam board the school your going to offers? I have just done my AS psychology with OCR and really enjoyed the course. I got an A. It is a lot of work to memorise everything (for my exam board I had to remember 15 studies in detail as well as four research methods) however it is manageable as long as you put the work in early. It's much easier to remember things if you write detailed notes the first time around- I got an A with little revision coming up to the exams as I had worked hard continuously throughout the year and so could remember most of the information I needed. In terms of exam structure it varied- there were some longer answer questions (longest was 12 marks) however in AS I never needed to write any essays as such. I'm not sure what it's going to be like in A2 yet.

Hope this helps and feel free to ask any questions. :smile:


I have just checked the website and they use OCR too. I realised part way through GCSE that I should've put more effort into memorising things after lessons so i wasn't stuck with a pile of stuff i needed to improve on so I'm definitely planning to put more effort into straight after lessons at A-Level.
What other courses have you done and which one are you dropping this year?
Good luck with A2!

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Psychology is amazing especially if you're on the AQA A course. Everything just makes so much sense and I don't ever remember not really understanding something. There's definitely a lot of memorisation if you decide to revise the week before but I never needed to memorise information because of how straightforward the info was. I managed a very high A at AS :biggrin:
(edited 9 years ago)
I did psychology A-level. I got a C at AS, but with hard work and tutors, I pulled this up to an A* at A2. The course was mostly vey interesting, but the exam technique is quite tricky to grasp, and you do need to memorise lots of dates/names (which I could never spell!) I'd advise you to find out what exam board and modules you'd be doing, and look up the spec online to see if you think it looks interesting. Also, make sure the teacher/s at your school are good - if there's just one and they're not very good, it might not be such a great idea unless you're willing to work independently or look at getting a tutor.
Good subject.
A lot of effort is needed, mainly to memorise a lot of information and practice. :redface: However, the content is mostly easy to understand.
I didn't expect so much information to take in and so many essays to learn. A2 gets way harder apparently.
My exam board was WJEC.
Original post by RosieEPQ
I did psychology A-level. I got a C at AS, but with hard work and tutors, I pulled this up to an A* at A2. The course was mostly vey interesting, but the exam technique is quite tricky to grasp, and you do need to memorise lots of dates/names (which I could never spell!) I'd advise you to find out what exam board and modules you'd be doing, and look up the spec online to see if you think it looks interesting. Also, make sure the teacher/s at your school are good - if there's just one and they're not very good, it might not be such a great idea unless you're willing to work independently or look at getting a tutor.



Woooooow. C to an A* in second year. Congrats! :smile: Did you get almost full marks or something? :eek:
What exam board did you have?
Reply 13
Original post by orphan_black
Psychology is amazing especially if you're on the AQA A course. Everything just makes so much sense and I don't ever remember not really understanding something. There's definitely a lot of memorisation though!


I'm going to be on OCR (if I get into my first choice college) but I'm really looking forward to it now, as I've decided I definitely want to do it. Thank you

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Original post by Meg321
I have just checked the website and they use OCR too. I realised part way through GCSE that I should've put more effort into memorising things after lessons so i wasn't stuck with a pile of stuff i needed to improve on so I'm definitely planning to put more effort into straight after lessons at A-Level.
What other courses have you done and which one are you dropping this year?
Good luck with A2!

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Along with psychology I took biology, French and history. I'll be dropping history at A2.
Original post by I Procrastinate
Woooooow. C to an A* in second year. Congrats! :smile: Did you get almost full marks or something? :eek:
What exam board did you have?


Haha thank you, I retook unit 2 and got 100/100 UMS, unit 3 I got 97/100 and unit 4 managed 93/100, so I'm happy! I did AQA A :smile:
Reply 16
Original post by RosieEPQ
I did psychology A-level. I got a C at AS, but with hard work and tutors, I pulled this up to an A* at A2. The course was mostly vey interesting, but the exam technique is quite tricky to grasp, and you do need to memorise lots of dates/names (which I could never spell!) I'd advise you to find out what exam board and modules you'd be doing, and look up the spec online to see if you think it looks interesting. Also, make sure the teacher/s at your school are good - if there's just one and they're not very good, it might not be such a great idea unless you're willing to work independently or look at getting a tutor.


Well done in boosting your grade up so much! Yes, I have done that and I'm still very interested in it so its looking good, I just need to find out about the teachers. Thank you

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Hiya! Im right in the middle of my psychology A-level (going into A2 in september) got a high B in my AS. There will definitely be moments where you're sitting there like "umm...what? Is this in english?!" But it's just one of those subjects where you'll have ti read a few things more than once and be willing to ask for help when you need it! Definitely worth it
Reply 18
Original post by I Procrastinate
Good subject.
A lot of effort is needed, mainly to memorise a lot of information and practice. :redface: However, the content is mostly easy to understand.
I didn't expect so much information to take in and so many essays to learn. A2 gets way harder apparently.
My exam board was WJEC.


I guess the effort will be worth it if I enjoy it, thank you for the heads up, I'm going to be on OCR

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Original post by RosieEPQ
Haha thank you, I retook unit 2 and got 100/100 UMS, unit 3 I got 97/100 and unit 4 managed 93/100, so I'm happy! I did AQA A :smile:


:shock:

I did WJEC so i don't what that exam board is like, but as Ron Weasley would say, that is bloody brilliant.

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