Hello 2011 psych students,
I've been thinking a lot about how tough it will be next year with little resources due to the change in study design. Practice exams will probably be scarce, and I know how important good practice exams are to make sure you're prepared for the exam.
Soooooo... I'll be making two practice exams for the mid year and two for the end of year (Might even be three, I'll have to wait and see how much time I've got. Currently I've already created one so three is definitely possible.) I'll try to make them of varying difficulty. So you can do one earlier in the year. Perhaps exam A, exam B and exam C. With C being the hardest and A being the easiest (that is, if I end up making three!). I'll have to wait and see though, these extra ideas are mainly just plans.
These will be ready for you to purchase in April. I could post the exams to you (will incur an extra postage charge) or you could meet me in the city somewhere next year. I'll figure all that out soon! They will DEFINITELY only be distributed in hardcopy though to try to lessen copyright infringements. And don't try to post them on here please! I'll be working very hard on these practice exams and I won't be making end of year ones if I see people are going around sharing them without my permission
. You can rip off commercial companies they've got the big bucks! haha I'm just a student so please keep that in mind if you were planning on photocopying the exams.
I'm still contemplating the prices but they'll be pretty reasonable (it'll be cheaper if you buy more. So one practice exam may cost 8 dollars while buying the two different ones may cost 15, a deal like that). It's mainly to cover the cost of printing the exams, postage or travel to the meeting place, purchase of textbooks from the new study design and the amount of time and effort that will go into them!
I'll be writing proper solutions which won't just be brief responses. Many commercial companies just write the bare minimum for their suggested answers when in most cases their answers would only scrape by as full marks. The practice exams will be checked rigorously for errors which are often another problem with commercial companies, they have too many mistakes. I'll be having the practice exams checked before they're printed by an experienced assessor (my teacher this year
) So don't worry about mistakes or errors cos there most probably won't be any! *Fingers crossed*
When writing the practice exam I have the study design next to me and go through it dot by dot. This is what the exam writers are instructed to do, so my exams will hopefully be as close to the real thing as possible (no guarantees however, all exam writers for psych will be writing "in the dark" so to speak as the exam might throw a few curveballs, however I'll try my best to include as many interesting and good questions as I can). As mentioned in my tutoring ad, I like to make a grid of everything that is examinable, I then go through and tick what has occurred each year. After doing so I can see quite clearly what will most likely be on the exam. My teacher showed me this technique and I can assure you it helped me immensely in preparing for my own exams. My experiences this year have taught me a great deal about how vcaa usually constructs its psych exams. I've done PLENTY of psych papers this year so I'm aware of what is most likely to come up on the 2011 exam, what they usually like to ask and how they like to ask it, + common pitfalls and much much more
I also thought it'd be good to post what MC answers you got wrong and what SA questions you found difficult so you can see how others are finding it and what the weaknesses of your competition really are! So I'll create an email account where you can send in what you got wrong and I'll post up the statistics of the practice exams on VN in the weeks leading up to the exam when they're actually being used.
Btw, if you want my credentials, I got a 50 in psych this year
I truly love the subject hence I'll also be tutoring it next year - check my signature down the bottom for a link to my ad (sorry I couldn't resist a good plug!). I'll also be learning all the new requirements of the new study design too and I'll make sure I've perfected them as best I can. You're in safe hands with me, I promise!
Stay tuned, I will give you all an update in about 2 months time. In that time, I'll be writing the best goddam psych papers I can possibly make!
p.s. I'll also be writing a full set of solutions to the VCAA 2011 Sample Exam which will be provided to all those who I tutor for free or those who buy the practice exams (for an extra charge but it'd be around 6 bucks or something cheap
).
Just post a reply or PM me if you'd be interested in buying the exams and tell me of any ideas or things you think you'd find useful! I'm open to suggestions. And I'm interested to hear feedback on my ideas 8-) Thanks everyone.Good luck to you all!