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Psychology AQA A-level students (Help!!)

I was wondering if I could talk to students who are doing year 13 or have just got their results for Psychology A-level. If anyone is willing to have a discussion with me about choosing the topics for paper 3, I would be so so so so incredibly grateful.

Thank you :smile:
(edited 4 years ago)

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Avatar for iko_1
iko_1
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Hello,

I just did the Alevel n my options were Forensic Psychology, Gender and Schizophrenia. I’d defo chose Schizophrenia as it was actually quite interesting and easy to learn. Gender was kinda short and I wasn’t too interested as a lot of it I already understood outside of school. Forensics was honestly TOO long and has so much content to learn. I wouldn’t personally do it.
Original post by iko_1
Hello,

I just did the Alevel n my options were Forensic Psychology, Gender and Schizophrenia. I’d defo chose Schizophrenia as it was actually quite interesting and easy to learn. Gender was kinda short and I wasn’t too interested as a lot of it I already understood outside of school. Forensics was honestly TOO long and has so much content to learn. I wouldn’t personally do it.

Thank you so much for replying!
For this subject, do teachers choose the topics for the entire class or are individual given the freedom to choose separately?
I am glad you say Schizophrenia was easy to learn, I will have a look at it. I was leaning towards ‘Stress’.

From Option 3, what would you say you'd choose 'Aggression' or 'Addiction' if you could go back? I don't know if you know much about those because you obviously did the other topic in that option.

If you have any other general advice to leave, please do. x
I just got good grades in psycho and I would defonintly recommend Schizophrenia as its simple and ties in with a lot of previous topics very well.

Relationships seems daunting but the material is relatively simple to learn.

Aggression I do NOT recommend. There are maybe 3x the amount of studies to learn as any other topic, and can be quite complicated, boring and it's a very large topic
Original post by IzzyGC
I just got good grades in psycho and I would defonintly recommend Schizophrenia as its simple and ties in with a lot of previous topics very well.

Relationships seems daunting but the material is relatively simple to learn.

Aggression I do NOT recommend. There are maybe 3x the amount of studies to learn as any other topic, and can be quite complicated, boring and it's a very large topic

So glad there are strong recommendations for Schizophrenia. Did you do 'Aggression'? In your opinion what would be a good topic to do from Option 3?
Also, can I just ask why there are only 3 topics for paper 2 and 4 topics for both paper 1 and paper 2 when all three papers contribute equally to the final grade? This is so strange to me and I am afraid that I might be looking at the wrong stuff. Can you confirm this? I am assuming it might be because the topics in paper 2 are maybe just longer…?

Thank you so very much! x
In paper two, the research methods from book 1 and book 2 are combined into a single, twice as big topic. Which is why there are only 3. There are twice as many marks for this topic.

I did aggression and I regret it. We voted as a class and aggression came out on top but by the end we all wish we had chosen something else. I didn't do the other two topics so I'm unsure
Schizophrenia is interesting but has a strong biological basis so if you're not good with that I wouldn't recommend it.

Gender is quite simple if you understand the approaches as it's just each approaches way of explaining gender.

Forensic is similar to gender in that it's explanations for offending based on different approaches. But also has extras sections on measuring crime, profiling and how to treat criminals. It's a long topic but mostly straightforward in terms of content.
Obviously different people will be more suited to different topics. I think I should have thought about that a bit more before making this thread. :biggrin: However, which topics do you guys think are generally not very popular with students because of how hard they are? In class, did the teacher every warn about certain topics?
Oh to add to my previous explanation, if you're still confused print or download a past paper of the aqa website and count the marks in each topic so you understand better
As others have said, would DEFINITELY recommend Gender, mostly easy to understand, lots of common sense/everyday knowledge. Schizophrenia was also good, interesting, and though somewhat biology-focused easy enough if you can memorise it.

I did aggression and agree that it’s quite a “long” topic. It was similar in difficulty to other topics just with more content it seemed. I’d recommend it if you are working with a teacher/tutor but maybe if you’re studying it alone you could take a look at the other option(s).
Original post by IzzyGC
Oh to add to my previous explanation, if you're still confused print or download a past paper of the aqa website and count the marks in each topic so you understand better

Will do! Thank you. x
oh and sorry last thing, but if you're a private candidate would you like my psychology notes? I got an A* this year and ive had a lot of people on this asking for my notes, you're welcome to have them too if you'd like.
Original post by IzzyGC
oh and sorry last thing, but if you're a private candidate would you like my psychology notes? I got an A* this year and ive had a lot of people on this asking for my notes, you're welcome to have them too if you'd like.

You make an apology as you offer the world to me. :biggrin:
Please do!

Well done!!
(edited 4 years ago)
im not encouraging this
but u can see from my previous thread i chose gender/aggression instead of relationships and forensics. my teachers didnt agree but i believed in myself
secured an A
(edited 4 years ago)
ppl in my class didnt like relationships bc it's long and boring. forensics is also disliked bc it's longer than the rest and boring

aggression is more biological and unique/distinctive so it's easier to remember the unique/distintive studies.

stress and addiction are avoided by ppl as far as i am aware...there are a lot of studies.

gender is the shortest/easiest

schz very popular and short. i would want to change that topic tho. wish i did something else but i already studied it.


what i did to choose what seemed nicer to study was: i simply read each section and chose 1 topic from each section.

i couldnt get past relationships's 2nd double page. too boring. with gender, i read almost the whole thing bc it was INTERESTING
(edited 4 years ago)
Original post by anonymoussse
im not encouraging this
but u can see from my previous thread i chose gender/aggression instead of relationships and forensics. my teachers didnt agree but i believed in myself
secured an A


Aw well done for getting that A!

Sorry, I have another question. On the specification it says that topic 7 'Research methods' is only tested in paper 2, whereas Physics and Maths tutor website says topic 7 is tested in both paper 1 and paper 2. Which is correct?

Thanks x (also I am really sorry for randomly throwing this question at you )
what is topic 7? i only know them by name

paper 1= psychopathology,memory,social influence, attach
paper 2= research meths, biopsy, approaches
paper 3=issues and debates+section a,b, and c
Original post by anonymoussse
what is topic 7? i only know them by name

paper 1= psychopathology,memory,social influence, attach
paper 2= research meths, biopsy, approaches
paper 3=issues and debates+section a,b, and c

Research methods is topic 7. According to the website, students are tested on it in both Paper 1 and paper 2. I am guessing the website is....wrong?
yeah physicsandmathstutor isnt good for psychology so it's wrong
RM is only in paper 2
but they do put in little RM questions in all 3 papers.
Original post by anonymoussse
yeah physicsandmathstutor isnt good for psychology so it's wrong
RM is only in paper 2
but they do put in little RM questions in all 3 papers.

Haha I was downloading summary notes from the website. Thanks for letting me know!

:smile:
Are there any resources online you found particularly useful?

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