hi! how did you find psychology?
how much study time did you devote to psychology in your routine? is it incredibly difficult to get a 45+?
did you find it easier than your other subjects, and if not, what made it hard/easy?
which is better, typed notes or handwritten, and why? is copying the powerpoint directly a bad idea?
how do you go about revising notes for the end of the year?
also, how did you study for psych? (like notes, flashcards, etc.)
thank you so much!
Hey lastapasta! Thanks for your questions - I'll answer them one by one.
hi! how did you find psychology?I enjoyed it! I had four subjects (Psych, English Language, VCD, HHD) that were all my favourite subject at one point in time. There was never really a period where I didn't enjoy Psych, although some parts I found a bit dry. My year was the last year that Psych had a mid-year exam, so that was pretty hectic. In some ways it was good to get an exam assessment out of the way mid-year, but overall I think I'd prefer the way it is now (as it was for the rest of my subjects).
how much study time did you devote to psychology in your routine?Probably not the answer you're looking for, but basically as much as I felt necessary at the time haha. I was fortunate in that I found the content at least somewhat interesting, so it didn't feel like too much of a burden to study for the subject. I would have spoken about this earlier in this thread somewhere, but my general routine was to study pretty much directly before and after school, and not much else, so that's mostly when I studied for Psych. Come the end of the year (and mid-year in my case), I smashed out the practice exams. Psych had a study design change fairly recently, but I'd encourage you not to discount older past exams entirely, because some of the questions will still be very relevant. It might be an idea to work with your teacher or make a thread on ATAR Notes to see which questions are still relevant.
is it incredibly difficult to get a 45+?Objectively, you need to be in the top 2% or so to get a 45+ study score, so yeah, I guess pretty difficult! But pretty difficult isn't the same as unachievable by any means.
did you find it easier than your other subjects, and if not, what made it hard/easy? Not really. In fact, a lot of my subjects were pretty similar in structure, namely Psych, Business Management and HHD. A fair bit of content, fairly theoretical, a bunch of application questions. I probably benefitted from doing all three because I learnt how to answer questions pretty effectively, I think. I don't think it's really comparable to my other three subjects (English Language, VCD, Further Maths).
which is better, typed notes or handwritten, and why?I hand-wrote everything, even through uni. Never used a laptop for notes. I think it helps aid information consolidation, and I believe a number of studies back that up, but that's just me. There are heaps of students who did better than I did who would have typed their notes (@jamonwindeyer for one), so I don't think there's necessarily a right or wrong answer here. But yeah, I always hand-wrote.
is copying the powerpoint directly a bad idea? I don't think doing this would be the most effective study technique if you're just passively copying it from the screen or a print-out. Don't get me wrong, I don't notes from PowerPoint presentations, too, but I tried to actively think about what I was writing, and where that information fit in the broader scheme of the course. Basically, I'd like:
* copy stuff from presentation in class pretty roughly;
* think about that information some more, maybe do some practice questions;
* summarise what I'd learnt less roughly;
* summarise that again;
* summarise that again (and so on);
* do some more practice questions.
And that's pretty much it. So to answer your question in a really roundabout way, I don't think it's inherently bad, no, but I also don't think it would necessarily be that effective if that's the only study you were doing for the subject.
how do you go about revising notes for the end of the year?I loved summaries. I wrote a lot of them, and tried to get my notes to be as concise as possible. When I felt comfortable on the majority of the content (maybe even before), I started practice exams (and had done practice questions throughout the year). Marking those practice exams was a really important process for me - perhaps even more important than actually sitting the exams in the first place.
For notes specifically, to be honest, they were more a mean to an end than an end in themselves for me. What I mean here is that the benefit of having good notes for me was that I could give them to somebody and then get tested on the information really easily, and that's where the value came rather than just, y'know, having notes. I hope that makes sense haha.
also, how did you study for psych? (like notes, flashcards, etc.) As above, a combination of initial notes and then summaries, getting tested (verbally), practice questions and practice exams.
thank you so much!No problem at all - hope to see you more around the forums.
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