A level psychology

Hi guys, I’m a private candidate and I am hoping to take take my chemistry and psychology exams this summer, if the government sorts something out for us independent students. I need to achieve a B in psychology but I’m struggling to learn and memorise all the content. Is it possible to skip a few details in the topics as I’m not aiming for an A or A* ? If so can any one suggest which content I should prioritise and what to neglect. My exam board is AQA.

Hey, how are you?
I’m in the same position as you- I’m taking my psychology exam this summer too. I do AQA. Don’t skip details what I advise you to do is by remembering content just make flash cards and relate the topics to your personal life. Make sure you REVISE RESEARCH METHODS. This is worth 3 x the marks then any topic in psychology. Make sure you do exam essays for everything and make it as fun as possible. I hope this helps x

I'd try and break the content into manageable chunks or by paper.

Research methods has the potential to come up in any paper, so try and focus on that too. It has a lot of content and is very specific. Make flashcards regularly to test yourself e.g. handwritten or on quizlet, watch videos on the topic, try some exam questions.

Spaced repetition is for transferring info into your long-term memory, and that works for me. So revise a topic, make notes, then a few days later look over it again, then a week etc and see what you can remember from it with active recall. Write everything you know on the topic over 5 or 10 minutes, add in a new colour what you missed out, focus on those. You have to continue with this method or it won't work.

I wouldn't skip any details personally, because that could come up in an 8-marker for example. Know your key studies for each topic, certain percentages or results for important studies (e.g. Milgram's variations). Write them on a post-it note and put it by your laptop or something so you read it all the time.

You could also look at past exam papers to see what the 16-markers were on, so they probably won't give the same essay question on that particular topic. This could help condensing your notes by checking the mark scheme and knowing the same question won't come up, maybe as a smaller mark question though.