Phsychology A-level - difficult?

I am just looking at collages to join, i am stuck between two, which both do phsychology. I tried it out the other day on an induction day and really quite enjoyed it, but I've heard about the examination style and that it's full of essays. I'm just not sure if it is going to be too difficult. I would be looking for an A/A* grade hopefully. Thank you.

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Reply 1

TimmyBurch

i've just done Psychology AS

it's not that bad, it's mainly learning research

a question e.g. "outline and evaluate research into conformity"

if you learn your research, you'll be fine. it's split up into AO1 and AO2. AO1 is outline, AO2 is evaluation.

So for example "so and so did research into conformity using an independent groups design. participants this... aims this..." etc

evaluation is pretty simple, write about ethical issues etc, reliability, validity

its actually pretty straight forward, i had to learn 61 pieces of research though but the content is only 3 sentences on each of them, the rest you kind of know and a lot of it is lab so you dont have to learn its lab research as you can just tell etc

CGP do an excellent book on it

it is hard ish but if you are willing to put the effort in you should be fine, most of it as well is concepts and (Some) tick boxes/identifying behaviour e.g. "what type of personality does harry have" etc

Reply 2

Noodlzzz

What is this phsychology you speak of?

Serious note, yes essays at A2 but most of the 'hard work' from psych comes from memorising. If your good at either, go for it. Also the inductions lie. They make psych sound fun, it's really not.

Reply 3

SpicyStrawberry

If you've got a good memory it's quite easy as there are a lot of studies/evaluation points/theories to learn. If you're not great at writing essays it might not be for you.

Reply 4

smileybop

I enjoyed it :smile:

I found that as long as you leartn basic outlines..eg 2 researchers for each topic you could kind of blag your way through :smile:

Reply 5

diamonddust

*Desperately trying to ignore the misspelling of Psychology*
I found it really easy until Research Methods which is just pure evil. It's mostly memorisation and evaluation and tbh, the evaluation should come naturally if you know studies and approaches. I think it's the sheer volume of the content that makes it difficult. It's not fun when you have a week until the exam and 3 huge topics to learn with a million studies to memorise. If you don't leave it all to the last minute, you'll probably be fine.

Reply 6

Lumen

It was by far the easiest of my AS levels (though the others were Lit, History and Philosophy so not exactly soft subjects).

There are essays, but the essays are very straightforward and formulaic. There is little in the way of interpretation; all you really have to do is explain and write about what they're asking. The worst part, as others have said, is the amount you have to learn. There is a LOT to memorise, but if that doesn't bother you then you should be fine. Oh, and also there's the issue of timing but you get that in any subject. I always ran out of time when I tried to write everything down.

Reply 7

ray_charlene

i bet you are doing AQA psychology right???
im doing OCR and i HATE A2 psychology as I think memorising those numbers of participants etc isn't that interesting after all~~

Reply 8

TobeTheHero

Psychology*

On serious note, I think it's one of the easiest subject around and there is no way you could fail :smile:

(edited 12 years ago)

Reply 9

StitchMad

I really enjoyed AS Psychology (AQA Psychology A) and I'll be continuing it next year at A2. It's a lot of essay writing in A2 by the looks of things, but it just looks really interesting more than anything! :smile:

I'd really suggest to just go for it! If you don't like you, you can always change after a few weeks, or even at the end of the first year. :smile:

Reply 10

GLOB

Original post by Lumen

Is philosophy not easy? Urgh, i was hoping it would be like GCSE where you just made loads of crap up and stuck quotes in to back it up.

Reply 11

iammichealjackson

Understandability of Content- Easy
Skills needed- Essay writing/Memorisation
Work Load- Okay until exam time when you have to memorise alot of things its fine.

Negative points- not very useful for applying to uni, since its not seen as a 'facilitating' a level by good unis (http://www.russellgroup.ac.uk/uploads/InformedChoicesupdated_1.pdf). If your going for the competitive universities you've got to take it with more traditional subjects.

Positive points- can be very interesting, and is useful for applying to psychology at university, although some places will require you to study another science.

People who end up hating psychology mostly come from a humanities background at a level, because you would think psychology is the ultimate humanities subject- it tells us about humans right? These people may get stumped by the scientific elements to psychology- evaluating methodology etc.

(edited 12 years ago)

Reply 12

iammichealjackson

Original post by GLOB

Is philosophy not easy? Urgh, i was hoping it would be like GCSE where you just made loads of crap up and stuck quotes in to back it up.

Philosophy had high drop out rates at A2 my school, whereas nobody dropped psychology. That may also be because of the qaulity of teaching may be worse for philosophy but from people i know who have done it they say its quite hard.

Reply 13

George Mcarthy

First of all, thank you all for the replies :biggrin:

my E-mails didn't show up, so i thought i had got none ahaa. Well i do find it very interesting and i do know that the college will have been trying to sell it, but in general i do. I would be taking this alongside Physics, Chemistry and Maths, is this a good combination? Unfortunately after a lot of time searching the website to see which exam board this college does, i found nothing :frown:

so i am not sure what exam board this is took over. So overall it's easy enough to get an A/A* grade if you have a good enough memory? ahaa

Reply 14

iammichealjackson

Original post by George Mcarthy

First of all, thank you all for the replies :biggrin:

so i am not sure what exam board this is took over. So overall it's easy enough to get an A/A* grade if you have a good enough memory? ahaa

I did maths, physics, psychology and english lit, so we have pretty similar choices!!

I think you've got some good choices there, what do you want to do at uni?

Maths/physics have pretty difficult content, however for physics i found that you could get away with doing 30/60 mins of homework a week and still get an A, as its not very taxing in terms of memorisation. With physics though, I completely did not understand things for some time, such as electricity and the fields module, since the concepts are harder to get your head round, but you eventually get there.

Maths also compliments psychology since you can revise maths very early on, by doing practise papers, which leaves time to cram psychology studies before the exam!! I don't know much about chemistry i'm aftaid :P

(edited 12 years ago)

Reply 15

Esc

I just finished my first year of Psychology and I really enjoyed it. The revisions sessions until 7PM are tedious and annoying but they are definitely worth it.

Reply 16

icarus_xx

There's a lot of crossover material in psychology (you'll learn to love/hate the words ecol validity, pop validity, reductionism, androcentric, etc.), so it's not the most difficult subject to get an A* in. That being said, it isn't exactly easy. :biggrin:

Mostly you'll find a genuine interest is what will keep you going in the topic. The only really annoying bit is the research methods.

Reply 17

iammichealjackson

Original post by Esc

I just finished my first year of Psychology and I really enjoyed it. The revisions sessions until 7PM are tedious and annoying but they are definitely worth it.

Until 7pm? I would be up at like 11pm doing revision...

Reply 18

George Mcarthy

Original post by iammichealjackson

I honestly am unsure at the moment, I believe i am too young to decide aha :wink:

but it'll fly by soon :frown:

I have done a whole topic on electricity in GCSE and managed to understand it quite well in the end, but i suppose A-level is a whole other level:') i should do ok i hope ahaa! I know a fair bit about the others, it's just pyschology i am unsure of, so i was just wondering like how difficult it is to get an A or A* and how much revision there'll be and things:\ but thank you, your comment has been very useful :biggrin:

Reply 19

Esc

Original post by iammichealjackson

Until 7pm? I would be up at like 11pm doing revision...