AQA Psychology A Level

Original post by Hogwarts14

Hi there

hopefully you can help me, I'm currently in year 13 and doing A level Psychology, I'm really hoping to get a C In it, however my grades for year 12 and year 13 so far have been a D and an E, I've been revising lots and been using SM carteledge psychology videos to make my revision notes and I did a psychology test a couple of days ago, which I revised lots for and I still managed to only get an E, im just looking for any advice or help as I am trying, but it just Dosent seem to be working, any recommendations on how to revise or help would be greatly appreciated !!

Thank you so much

Hey! I'm in year 13 and I'm predicted an A* for AQA Psychology, so I hope I can help! I use a website called up learn and it guarantees an A*/A or you get your money back, since it is quite expensive so this may not be available to you, but I would check it out if you can. You learn by doing interactive lessons and there's summary videos for each subtopics. There is also exam technique videos too on how to structure your answer. Alternatively, there is a website called savemyexams which may be more cost effective for you, since it is a lot cheaper. They have summarised all the material that you need to know for the course into concise and clear notes - saving you a lot of time. For whichever revision resource you choose to refer to, I would defo recommend not writing notes from these, and you should spend your time trying to learn/understand the material and practise applying these notes into exam questions (savemyexams also has lots of exam practice questions and also PMT which is free). To learn the material, I would recommend using the Feynman technique (if you google this it will explain it properly) and this has worked for me everytime since it is impossible to memorise the whole psychology syllabus word for word on flashcards - I've tried it and it doesn't work for me. Additionally, if you only learn this material and don't practice applying it to exam questions, you won't get full marks. You really need to practice your exam technique - this is key. A simple structure that you can follow for short AO1 questions is to make one point (fact / statement) per mark. For short AO2 questions you can follow a PEEL structure (point, evidence, explain, link back to Q). And for longer essay style questions, you can follow a PEI structure - point, elaborate (give evidence/examples from e.g. studies), importance (explain how the evidence you've described supports your point). The most important thing for AO3 longer questions is to not just state the evidence, but to EVALUATE it (why does this evidence provide support / is a weakness). For example, a evaluation paragraph on Asch's study into conformity: One strength of Asch's study is that the study had high control over extraneous variables [Point]. Since Asch's study was a laboratory experiment, he could standardise extraneous variables that could potentially influence the participants' behaviour [Elaborate]. For instance, Asch could standardise the lines that he used as stimuli in the study to make sure they were of the same difficulty for all participants [Elaborate]. This is a strength because it meant that Asch could establish a cause and effect relationship between the confederate's responses to the lines (his independent variable) and conformity (his dependent variable) [Importance]. Hope this helps!! - apologies for the extremely long answer lol. Feel free to ask any more questions :smile:

(edited 5 months ago)

Reply 2

Hogwarts14

OP

Original post by hayleygeorge15

Hey! I'm in year 13 and I'm predicted an A* for AQA Psychology, so I hope I can help! I use a website called up learn and it guarantees an A*/A or you get your money back, since it is quite expensive so this may not be available to you, but I would check it out if you can. You learn by doing interactive lessons and there's summary videos for each subtopics. There is also exam technique videos too on how to structure your answer. Alternatively, there is a website called savemyexams which may be more cost effective for you, since it is a lot cheaper. They have summarised all the material that you need to know for the course into concise and clear notes - saving you a lot of time. For whichever revision resource you choose to refer to, I would defo recommend not writing notes from these, and you should spend your time trying to learn/understand the material and practise applying these notes into exam questions (savemyexams also has lots of exam practice questions and also PMT which is free). To learn the material, I would recommend using the Feynman technique (if you google this it will explain it properly) and this has worked for me everytime since it is impossible to memorise the whole psychology syllabus word for word on flashcards - I've tried it and it doesn't work for me. Additionally, if you only learn this material and don't practice applying it to exam questions, you won't get full marks. You really need to practice your exam technique - this is key. A simple structure that you can follow for short AO1 questions is to make one point (fact / statement) per mark. For short AO2 questions you can follow a PEEL structure (point, evidence, explain, link back to Q). And for longer essay style questions, you can follow a PEI structure - point, elaborate (give evidence/examples from e.g. studies), importance (explain how the evidence you've described supports your point). The most important thing for AO3 longer questions is to not just state the evidence, but to EVALUATE it (why does this evidence provide support / is a weakness). For example, a evaluation paragraph on Asch's study into conformity: One strength of Asch's study is that the study had high control over extraneous variables [Point]. Since Asch's study was a laboratory experiment, he could standardise extraneous variables that could potentially influence the participants' behaviour [Elaborate]. For instance, Asch could standardise the lines that he used as stimuli in the study to make sure they were of the same difficulty for all participants [Elaborate]. This is a strength because it meant that Asch could establish a cause and effect relationship between the confederate's responses to the lines (his independent variable) and conformity (his dependent variable) [Importance]. Hope this helps!! - apologies for the extremely long answer lol. Feel free to ask any more questions :smile:

Hi thank you so much for your reply and yeah its just annoying as I do work hard and revise for psychology, but I still keep getting a D or E, and yeah I'm not sure their would be point in me getting up-learn with my exams in May as I wouldn't wanna waste my money . but ill have a look anyway and ill have a look at save my exams as well, any opinions on smcarteledge?? I do really like his videos and its hard with psychology as sometimes I feel I know the content, but maybe im just getting it wrong on how to apply it and how to answer exam questions ? and I'll have a look at the Feynman technique. and yes I agree I struggle with remembering all the content and I guess answering exam questions. we haven't done that much in class, one of my teachers just goes through PowerPoints and the other is a bit boring, so thank you for your help. I have seen other websites like study rocket and simple psychology, but sometimes its hard to know how much or little content we need

Thank you for your help !!

Reply 3

Original post by Hogwarts14

Hi thank you so much for your reply and yeah its just annoying as I do work hard and revise for psychology, but I still keep getting a D or E, and yeah I'm not sure their would be point in me getting up-learn with my exams in May as I wouldn't wanna waste my money . but ill have a look anyway and ill have a look at save my exams as well, any opinions on smcarteledge?? I do really like his videos and its hard with psychology as sometimes I feel I know the content, but maybe im just getting it wrong on how to apply it and how to answer exam questions ? and I'll have a look at the Feynman technique. and yes I agree I struggle with remembering all the content and I guess answering exam questions. we haven't done that much in class, one of my teachers just goes through PowerPoints and the other is a bit boring, so thank you for your help. I have seen other websites like study rocket and simple psychology, but sometimes its hard to know how much or little content we need

Thank you for your help !!

hey! I've just had a quick look at smcartledge and I think it's a great way to learn the material, but perhaps for a more concise revision source I would refer to something like simplypsychology as I have used them in the past. Another similar one to this is learndojo (it's free) as it's just nice, concise and clear notes that makes revision less daunting. I realise that revision sources can vary in what you have to learn, but the mark schemes acknowledge this so I would recommend finding a good revision resource and just sticking to that. And yes I would defo stress that exam practice questions are the best thing to practice for you, since I think that you know the content, but aren't applying it in the right way. I struggled with this last year - I knew the content but wasn't applying it in the right way so I practiced my answer structures and found something that worked for me. It's a lot about practice and trial and error with different techniques on approaching questions. I wouldn't worry too much about memorising content word for word, but just memorising the general gist of things so that you can recite it in your own words, as this will prove a really good knowledge. 🙂

(edited 5 months ago)

Reply 4

Hogwarts14

OP

Thank you so much again for your reply, I better get on to practicing exam questions then, would you recommend possibly learning the content with SMcarteledge ? Or do you think this is maybe two much information and should use the ones you recommend instead !!. And then doing some exam questions on them, do you have any places you would recommend I can find these I know savemyexams have some I think , sorry again for all my questions and I was thinking maybe trying some mindmaps as well, as well as my revision notes, would you think this is beneficial ? :smile:

I have my mocks in February, so really hoping I can get a C as I do revise every time for my exams, but still keep getting D and E in psychology, thank you for all your help !!

Reply 5

Original post by Hogwarts14

Thank you so much again for your reply, I better get on to practicing exam questions then, would you recommend possibly learning the content with SMcarteledge ? Or do you think this is maybe two much information and should use the ones you recommend instead !!. And then doing some exam questions on them, do you have any places you would recommend I can find these I know savemyexams have some I think , sorry again for all my questions and I was thinking maybe trying some mindmaps as well, as well as my revision notes, would you think this is beneficial ? :smile:

I have my mocks in February, so really hoping I can get a C as I do revise every time for my exams, but still keep getting D and E in psychology, thank you for all your help !!

i think that if you want to learn the material and kinda understand it and get to grips with it i would use SMcartledge, but for revising i’d use one of the sites i listed, or something similar. Just bc it would be easier to revise from something that’s more concise. You can find lots of exam questions on save my exams, PMT, there should be lots online in various websites but I use those two sites. In terms of revision, you could do mindmaps, however for psychology i would recommend an active recall method, so you could do mindmaps from memory as practice, or flashcards, the feynman method, blurting, etc. I think it’s all about finding what revision method works best for you. But exam practice questions are key. :smile:

Reply 6

Hogwarts14

OP

Thank you so much for all your help, I think I'm gonna use SMcartledge for my revision cards as I've already done some of them for other topics and then obviously different sites evaluation will be different and then maybe the ones you suggested ill do for mind maps but use the same evaluation if that makes any sense. and ill try and do some exam papers, I did a recent test for psychology and was two marks off a B, So thank you so much for your advice and help !!

Reply 7

Original post by Hogwarts14

Thank you so much for all your help, I think I'm gonna use SMcartledge for my revision cards as I've already done some of them for other topics and then obviously different sites evaluation will be different and then maybe the ones you suggested ill do for mind maps but use the same evaluation if that makes any sense. and ill try and do some exam papers, I did a recent test for psychology and was two marks off a B, So thank you so much for your advice and help !!

that sounds like a good plan!! and well done on your recent test!!

Reply 8

Pyschology8

2

Can anyone help me with this pleasewhen an individual wish to stand in opposition to authority,he does best to find support for his position from others inhis group. the mutual support provided by men for eachother is the strongest bulwark we have against the excessesof authority.which variation of milgram's obedience study demonstratesthis and why ?

Reply 9

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