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March 29, 2024, 01:59:31 am

Author Topic: Psychology Q&A with the ATAR Notes Psych Lecturer  (Read 16108 times)  Share 

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howey

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Re: *LIVE RIGHT NOW* Psychology Q&A with the ATAR Notes Psych Lecturer
« Reply #30 on: April 09, 2017, 05:25:55 pm »
+3
Hey,

How did you approach the end of year exam? Did you do the sections in order?

Hi Psychislife, welcome to the forums and congrats on having such an enthusiastic Psych username! ;)

I simply did the sections on the exam in order, so I started with MC and then did the short-answer, and finished with the extended-response. If there were any questions I didn't know, I simply skipped them and came back to them at the end when I had time. Basically, I tried to keep it as simple as possible for myself :)

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How did you allocate time to the different sections on the exam and how long do you suggest we spend on each one?

The format of the exam has changed since I did it, but I would recommend:
MC - 20-25 minutes (or as short a time as possible while still being correct)
SA - 80-90 minutes (again, you can probably cut this down)
ER - 25-30 minutes (or even more if you have time)

This will differ depending on the individual, but my basic strategy would be to smash through the MC as fast as possible if you're a fast reader (obviously while still getting them right), and then spend plenty of time on SA and ER questions :)

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What are your study tips? How did you retain information throughout the year?

For studying, I created chapter summaries, which was my primary form of revision throughout the year. Everyone in my class also created a visual diary, which was a summary book with lots of pictures and diagrams. My advice for studying would be to stay on top of it as you go - it can get really difficult if you fall behind, so work solidly and consistently :) Also, before the exam, do heaps of practice questions and practice exams :)

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How did you revise for each chapter?

Basically just doing chapter summaries to try and cut the info down, and then some practice questions (I tended to prefer practice SAC's/exams to chapter questions, as I didn't find them that great) :)

I hope that's useful! ;D

"It's hard to beat a person who never gives up" - Babe Ruth

Amelia.d99

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Re: Psychology Q&A with the ATAR Notes Psych Lecturer
« Reply #31 on: April 09, 2017, 06:34:33 pm »
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Hi and thank you for offering this free Q&A!

Firstly, how would you suggest to manage studying consistently throughout the year? Our teacher has recommended revising the content we've learned regularly, but how do you suggest we manage this with such a big workload? And what sorts of things do you suggest doing to revise this work?

Also, how do you tackle the exam at the end of the year? Would you suggest doing it in order, and how much time should you be spending per mark?

With the 10 mark question that is on the exam and is new to the study design, how do you suggest we handle this? Where could we get practice for these questions?

How would you suggest revising for research methods? Do you suggest maybe doing a concept map to link terms together? And how should we prepare for the poster ERA?

Any other tips on managing and prioritising the workload during year 12, as well as dealing with multiple sacs in a week would be useful also!! In particular, how do you suggest we timetable our September school holidays to effectively revise for each subject?

Thanks a lot!

howey

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Re: Psychology Q&A with the ATAR Notes Psych Lecturer
« Reply #32 on: April 09, 2017, 08:24:14 pm »
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Hi and thank you for offering this free Q&A!

Firstly, how would you suggest to manage studying consistently throughout the year? Our teacher has recommended revising the content we've learned regularly, but how do you suggest we manage this with such a big workload? And what sorts of things do you suggest doing to revise this work?

Hi Amedlia.d99, and welcome to the forums! No worries at all :)

A top question! I mentioned in one of my earlier replies that this was probably the biggest thing I did wrong when I did Psych - not revising regularly enough. It is a tough one with such a big workload. Honestly, how I did it was simply just reading over my summaries that I'd made earlier in the year, when we covered a topic, and very occasionally doing a couple of questions on an earlier topic. But certainly don't overwork yourself trying to revise earlier stuff the whole time - if you learn it well you will remember a lot of it when it comes to studying for the exam anyway :)

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Also, how do you tackle the exam at the end of the year? Would you suggest doing it in order, and how much time should you be spending per mark?

Good question. The exam format has changed very slightly since I did it, but I simply did it in order, skipping any questions that I was stuck on and coming back to them at the end. I find keeping it simple is best, and it's definitely best to do MC questions first :)

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With the 10 mark question that is on the exam and is new to the study design, how do you suggest we handle this? Where could we get practice for these questions?

Yeah, this is a bit of a tricky one. You can practice on past VCAA exams because they had a section C and the last question was usually worth 10 marks (particularly check out the 2016 one as I think this year will be quite similar in terms of combining research methods and content). I would suggest you try and allow heaps of time for it on the exam (think 20-25 minutes or even more). Practice writing a lot for these questions as you have to give a high level of detail to get a really good mark :)


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How would you suggest revising for research methods? Do you suggest maybe doing a concept map to link terms together? And how should we prepare for the poster ERA?

For research methods, I put together a flowchart/concept map type thing to link all of the different elements together, so I think you're spot on there ;) Also practice writing hypotheses (always include Independent Variable, Population, Operationalised and Dependent Variable - acronym IPOD) and picking out extraneous variables, as they are very common question :) The ERA has been added since I left school, so I can't tell you how I prepared for it unfortunately :( My advice, simply off reading the VCAA brief would be to keep it simple and concise, and simply tick off each part (sorry I can't be more help with this)

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Any other tips on managing and prioritising the workload during year 12, as well as dealing with multiple sacs in a week would be useful also!! In particular, how do you suggest we timetable our September school holidays to effectively revise for each subject?

My main piece of advice is to work solidly and consistently throughout the year, as it can be quite difficult to catch up if you fall behind. In terms of dealing with multiple SAC's together (which seems to happen a lot), my strategy was simply to start studying for them a bit earlier than usual - so I might start looking over stuff a week before the SAC rather than a few days before. You just need to make sure that you have enough study time that you are confident. Also, don't be afraid to do homework or study on Friday nights when you need to ;) Finally, during the September holidays my main focus was practice exams. I didn't have a specific timetable, because some days you just don't feel like doing Maths, for example, but I tried to do one or two practice exams a day if I could, so that I'd done maybe four or five for each subject by the end of the holidays :)

I hope this advice helps you and good luck! ;D

"It's hard to beat a person who never gives up" - Babe Ruth

evalk13

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Re: Psychology Q&A with the ATAR Notes Psych Lecturer
« Reply #33 on: April 10, 2017, 06:47:47 am »
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Hi Howey :)

How would you go about operationalising Independant Variables such as Age and Nationality?

Tyyyyyyyyy

Joseph41

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Re: Psychology Q&A with the ATAR Notes Psych Lecturer
« Reply #34 on: April 10, 2017, 10:01:28 am »
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A big, big thanks to howey for his work in this thread! We're going to keep this discussion OPEN for now, but Tim's only in the Centre a couple of days a week, so responses may be slightly more spaced out. :)
« Last Edit: April 10, 2017, 10:41:06 am by Joseph41 »

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howey

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Re: Psychology Q&A with the ATAR Notes Psych Lecturer
« Reply #35 on: April 10, 2017, 05:08:28 pm »
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Hi Howey :)

How would you go about operationalising Independant Variables such as Age and Nationality?

Hi evalk13, and welcome to the ATAR Notes forums!

Operationalising these independent variables actually isn't too bad. For example, say I had an experiment on memory, and the scenario said that the experiment was testing people aged 20-29 and 70-79, my hypothesis would simply read something like:

'Young people aged between 20-29 will score higher on a standard memory test that older people aged between 70-79'.

Usually you don't have to worry too much about operationalising variables such as age and nationality, because the information will be given to you in a scenario - you just have to make sure that you include it in your hypothesis :)

I hope that clears that up (and that I've understood the question correctly). If you have any other questions, feel free to ask ;D


"It's hard to beat a person who never gives up" - Babe Ruth

evalk13

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Re: Psychology Q&A with the ATAR Notes Psych Lecturer
« Reply #36 on: April 14, 2017, 07:32:09 am »
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Hey Howey  :),
How would you justify if a particular event or situation was a major stressor or not? Eg. Running out of car fuel  on your way to your Psychology exam.
Thanks buddy  ;D

howey

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Re: Psychology Q&A with the ATAR Notes Psych Lecturer
« Reply #37 on: April 18, 2017, 06:33:02 pm »
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Hey Howey  :),
How would you justify if a particular event or situation was a major stressor or not? Eg. Running out of car fuel  on your way to your Psychology exam.
Thanks buddy  ;D

Hi evalk 13!

Ooh... great question! (And a tough one).

There is a bit of grey area here, definitely.

A major stressor is an event that is extremely stressful for (almost) everyone that experiences it. E.g. an armed robbery or a serious car crash

In terms of running out of fuel on the way to the Psych exam, I feel like this would be right on the edge between a major stressor and a daily pressure. I would probably classify it as a daily pressure, as I feel like major stressors are slightly more intense events that are more frightening. However, it could be argued either way.

For other events, generally on SAC's and exams they should be pretty obvious (e.g. an armed robbery would be a major stressor, an argument with a boyfriend or girlfriend would be a daily pressure).

Sorry I can't be of more help, unfortunately there is no clear line :)

"It's hard to beat a person who never gives up" - Babe Ruth

littledreamer

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Re: Psychology Q&A with the ATAR Notes Psych Lecturer
« Reply #38 on: April 18, 2017, 06:57:34 pm »
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Hello! I was just wondering what exactly we need to do with research methods and how to practice them? Was research methods the section C of the exam in the past? (However I think the current study design has an exam with only sections A and B but B includes a 10 mark question). Will research methods also appear in MCQ part of the exam? I have a rough idea of what research methods are but was wondering when and how we would use things like inter-rater reliability or parallel form reliability etc. And how I can practice using research methods, should I start doing section C from old VCAA papers?

Was also wondering if you have any idea what a practical report SAC is as I'm having one this term, would this be dependent on my school?

Thank you so much for your time :)

howey

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Re: Psychology Q&A with the ATAR Notes Psych Lecturer
« Reply #39 on: April 19, 2017, 11:43:52 am »
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Hello! I was just wondering what exactly we need to do with research methods and how to practice them? Was research methods the section C of the exam in the past? (However I think the current study design has an exam with only sections A and B but B includes a 10 mark question). Will research methods also appear in MCQ part of the exam? I have a rough idea of what research methods are but was wondering when and how we would use things like inter-rater reliability or parallel form reliability  etc. And how I can practice using research methods, should I start doing section C from old VCAA papers?

Was also wondering if you have any idea what a practical report SAC is as I'm having one this term, would this be dependent on my school?

Thank you so much for your time :)

Hi littledreamer,

Section C of past exams was based around research methods, and therefore is a good place to start with study. The last question of Section C (particularly in 2016) is similar to what I would expect the extended response question in Section B to be this year. And yes, you are correct, they have scrapped Section C this year :) Research methods definitely does appear in the MC section of the exam, and can pop up quite a bit.

I have never used terms like inter-rater reliability or parallel form reliability in an answer (and to be honest don't even fully understand what they mean ;)) so I seriously doubt you'll need to know those. Questions are generally around hypothesis, types of investigation (e.g. experiments vs observational studies), sampling and picking out extraneous variables, off the top of my head.

Section C of old VCAA and exams, and research methods VCAA MC questions are probably the best place to start studying for research methods, so you can get an idea of what they're likely to ask about :)

Hope that helps! Cheers

"It's hard to beat a person who never gives up" - Babe Ruth

pha0015

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Re: Psychology Q&A with the ATAR Notes Psych Lecturer
« Reply #40 on: April 19, 2017, 07:26:31 pm »
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What's the difference between approach/adaptive  and avoidance strategies and problem focused and emotion focused coping strategies? And to what extend can they overlap?

howey

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Re: Psychology Q&A with the ATAR Notes Psych Lecturer
« Reply #41 on: April 25, 2017, 11:04:22 am »
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What's the difference between approach/adaptive  and avoidance strategies and problem focused and emotion focused coping strategies? And to what extend can they overlap?

G'day pha0015!

Good question, and sorry for the delay in answering :(

Approach coping strategies involve direct efforts to deal with the stressor itself (e.g. if stressed about an upcoming test, then studying for that test). Avoidance coping strategies involve evading the stressor and dealing indirectly with it (e.g. if stressed about an upcoming test, then just accepting that you will do badly, or refusing to think about the test). :)

It's hard to tell if problem-focused and emotion-focused coping is still on the study design or not. Problem-focused coping refers to direct efforts to manage the stressor (it is very similar/the same as avoidance coping strategies). Emotion-focused coping involves effort to decrease the emotional component of the stressor (it is very similar/the same as approach coping strategies). Therefore, there is a lot of overlap :)

I hope this helps! Cheers :)

"It's hard to beat a person who never gives up" - Babe Ruth

Anterograde_Amnesia

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Re: Psychology Q&A with the ATAR Notes Psych Lecturer
« Reply #42 on: July 03, 2017, 12:10:59 pm »
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Hi Tim, where can I find a copy of the slides you presented at the ATAR Notes psychology lecture yesterday?

Joseph41

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Re: Psychology Q&A with the ATAR Notes Psych Lecturer
« Reply #43 on: July 03, 2017, 12:20:03 pm »
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Hi Tim, where can I find a copy of the slides you presented at the ATAR Notes psychology lecture yesterday?

Hey - welcome to ATAR Notes! :D

Tim's slides will be emailed out, and later uploaded to The VCE Discussion Group. :)

Hope you enjoyed the lecture!

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Ashjames

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Re: Psychology Q&A with the ATAR Notes Psych Lecturer
« Reply #44 on: July 03, 2017, 05:16:55 pm »
0
Hey everyone!!!

I just wanted to ask if anyone has finished the AOS on research methods(my school is reluctant to start it for some reason- but I'd like to get ahead). What SAC did you have to complete on this, or more specifically, what is the poster you have to complete about??