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A level Psychology

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Does anyone have any tips on how to do well in aqa a level psychology. It seems near impossible to remember all the evaluation points and flashcards seem quite boring to me and don’t work that well.

Reply 1

UoL Students

Official Rep

Original post by id\aedjwnxxkosz

Hello,

I did AQA A Level Psychology and can fully appreciate its difficulty. I know I used Memrise to help me remember the studies and evaluations. I will try to provide a link to the course I created- https://community-courses.memrise.com/community/course/6122587/aqa-a-level-psychology-key-studies/

In my experience, it is not possible to remember every single evaluation point but you should revise to remember every single evaluation point. Use psychology to your advantage, for instance as well as my various mock exams I did independently I would read out my notes but particularly the evaluation points out loud. Also, even if come the exam, particularly for the topics you are only starting to learn now, it is ok if you remember what the conclusion of a case was but not the case name, you will still receive marks.

Therefore do revise as if you can remember all the evaluations (because psychology says you can, Bahrick et al. long term memory is potentially unlimited and lasts forever) below is an evaluation structure you can follow, it may vary depending on the particular topic but your aim is to create a flow of argument. Also, although how many evaluation points is up for debate, I was always told to include five evaluation points for A Level.

Supporting Evidence

Research Methodologically Flawed (or maybe sound)

Real-World Practical Application

Contradictory evidence/alternative explanations

Issues, Debates and Approaches

For the second and fifth suggested PEEL in this structure you do not have to revise anything extra because these points all come from the AO1 and some AO3 from the topics of Approaches, Research Methods and Issues and Debates which you should be revising anyway.

I hope this helps, if you have any further questions please do let me know.

Charlie
Law LLB Student

Reply 2

kat1eetherington

Original post by id\aedjwnxxkosz

Hi, you need to make sure that you’re not learning too much content. The requirements of the specification is enough…the website https://www.psychologyhub.co.uk splits the specification into the material that you need to know for the exam. When revising from textbooks you usually find that they are content heavy and this can lead to covering too much information. It’s how you use the content you’ve learned (especially when it comes to evaluation) that’s important. The website that I’ve shared above splits the evaluation(AO3) into the PEE rule, ensuring that your evaluation is fully developed. It’s always good to have a minimum of three, fully developed evaluation paragraphs (especially for a larger marked essay question). Knowing and being able to apply your research methods and Issues, debates, ethics and approaches points will also help you pad out your revision and cut down the amount of additional evaluation points that you will need to learn.