AQA A2 Psychology PSYA3/PSYA4 Revision Thread 2016

I've got one if you'd like it

im not bothering learning last years one thats the only one from gender im missing out risky but its so much effort D: do you know whether the loopa predicitons are any good coz he hasnt predicted any of the cognitive theories

erm if I posted an essay or 2 here would someone be able to give me feedback and possibly grade it?

http://www.loopa.co.uk/psya3-gender-predictions-june-2016-aqa-psychology/

Yeah you're right. he hasn't predicted it. But he relies on observing which ones haven't come up in a long time. But i just keep getting a feeling that constancy or schema theory may be touched on.

But yeah, I'm not really relying on the predictions to see which parts I can skip and avoid. I use my main predictions to help me choose which ones to focus the most on and ensure I will definitely remember no matter what

erm if I posted an essay or 2 here would someone be able to give me feedback and possibly grade it?

Relationships, Schizophrenia, eating behaviour or biological rhythms and sure

thank you. I've done this one for 'outline and evaluate one or more theories of relationship breakdown. Thanks!

To anyone doing gender, for cultural influence how are you splitting AO1 and AO2? I have like one small paragraph of AO1 and that's it... My essay is really short

for evolutionary explanations of group aggression what would the IDA points be?

Hey, I hope this is somewhat helpful.

- From reading, I don't see an issue with your A01. It's very detailed and clear, so i'd say 7-8 marks there.
- The paragraph on Tashiro and Frazier's study needs to be "topped". From the first sentence of that paragraph, I can't decipher whether it's A01 or A02. The only thing that gives it a way is the 'this suggests' later on. For all of your A02 paragraphs, start of with "Supportive evidence" or "Findings to contradict this explanation come from". This makes it really clear to examiner you mean A02 and makes up your line of argument essentially.
- The following paragraph regarding the undergraduates doesn't really have an implication. You've said that the ability to generalise is limited, which it is. So to finish it off I would say 'Such studies may not truly aid in our understanding of the breakdown of relationships in all people. More research should be conducted using a wider population, in order to support the stages of breakdown universally.'
- The next paragraph is too big and I kinda get lost in it ;/. I get the initial point, about the models inability to explain the causes. But then you start describing in a bit too much detail about another model. I don't really think that's necessary tbh.
- REDUCTIONISM...big nono. In basically all of relationships, except really evolutionary explanations. If you read the examiner's report, AQA really dislike the use of reductionism when applied to things other than biology! You can only really say something is reductionist if the explanation is based on our genes or one biochemical factor. You can say the theory is limited, but it is definitely not reductionist. Because of this you may need another IDA that is effective. I personally used culture bias but it's up to you.
- The final paragraph is good, you've stated a practical application and went into some depth so great!

So overall I'd say 15-17. I'm not great at giving scores lol, but I think if you make these easy fixes, it'd easily jump to 20+ out of 24. Sorry for the long essay

Thank you so much! This is possibly the best piece of feedback ive gotten all year! I'll be sure to make those changes and will probably be posting more essays later this week. Again thanks a lot, your feedback really was helpful! A quick question though, if I said simplistic instead of reductionist would the examiners mind as much? If they would do you know what I could use instead?

have you got a Relationship breakdown essay my friend could have??

I regularly get 23/24 and write 2 and a half pages although my writing is small. If you are good at not waffling and getting straight to the information where the marks are like me you will be fine even writing two pages. The person who got 100ums in my class wrote around 2 and a half 3 pages in her exams as I've seen her script. It is the quality of what you write not the quantity so don't worry about comparing how much you write to other people

Im glad it was helpful! It was nice to take a break from trying to memorise all these essays lool. To be on the safe side and ensure you get marked for an effective IDA, I would have a bulky contextualised IDA and then you can have a small paragraph on the limited. You want an obvious one like reductionism, determinism, nature vs nurture etc. Then you can have a side note on limited or a practical applications which still gives you A02 marks. Tbh I'm not 100% if being limited would be considered an IDA...I suppose if you talk about no consideration for other factors and a holistic approach is needed to aid in our understanding...but again I wouldn't take the risk lool. It's slightly subjective ish