AQA A level Psychology A* AMA

This is the post I needed to see. I have just started AQA a level psychology. My teachers just put stuff on the board to copy down and I get all the notes down but I don’t understand any of it. IResearch methods is easy. We are moving onto ethical issues and origins of psychology and I don’t understand it. Are there any resources that are useful for revision and summary. Also where can I find past papers. Also (sorry) what revision did u do?

Hi, I have some questions about the 16 markers (Year 12 over here, but they're already making us do Year 2 content anyway).
1. I'm really confused on the difference between 'discuss' questions and 'evaluate' questions. What's the difference in answering the two, since I'm pretty sure both require some AO1 and AO3? How would you structure a response to each?

2. I'm also confused on evaluations in general. I usually use PEEL, like I'm pretty sure everyone else does, and I do vary my answers instead of sticking rigidly to PEEL and I offer counterpoints sometimes, but one of my teachers does this thing where she counters or undermines almost every evaluation she offers, while the other just usually writes just the evaluation. I trust the latter, because she's been a Psychology teacher for a few years and the other one only started, but I'm still not sure.

Thank this is very helpful I will buy a textbook tonight and do just this.

Thank u are there any books u would recommend that link to the course?

I recently achieved an A* in AQA A level psychology ask me any anything eg: revision tips, how to revise etc.

Do you know where I'd be able to find model 12/16 mark answers please ?

Scale of 1-10, how hard was it to get that A*?

10 being the hardest

I would probably say a 3, it did require lots of hard work and revision but I would say as long as you understand everything/ can write a good detailed essay, it gets a lot easier.

So 3/10?

30% ?? Damn you good

Haha I mean for me psychology was a lot more manageable and less time consuming in comparison to my other subjects (biology and chemistry), but obviously everyone finds different subjects hard.

I am not too sure of any reputable sources where you could find model answers but I would suggest doing them yourself and getting your teacher to mark them and redoing them until you get full marks so you have model answers to work from (this is what I did and used them to revise). Hope this helps.

Thank you how did you organize your folders and manage your time whilst doing the other a levels ?

For my folders, I had 4 per subject because I had 2 teachers for each subject and used 1 for AS and then 1 for A2. For Psychology specifically, I would separate your folders into research methods and then just general topics because it is so much easier to keep research methods separate. I would also keep a separate folder for daily use- when I went to sixth form I only took 1 folder with 3 sections and would only bring work for the topic that we we currently working on for each subject and then would transfer the work to my actual folder when we had finished with the topic. Managing my time was quite hard at first as I also did an EPQ- my advice would be to make sure you complete your homework on the day you get it if you can so you have more time to revise and use your free time in school to get work done. Also, prioritise your work according to what you think you are finding the hardest/ easiest.

Ah okay thanks how did you revise for Bio and chem .idk how to organise my chemistry folders either I was thinking of using a mindmap at the start of every topic but I'm not really sure yet