Psychology 2014

[LastOfUs]

Psychology 2014!

I believe psychology has quite a presence on ATARNotes so I thought those people doing it next year should have a thread to themselves to help each other out and have someone to talk to about the subject! As ATARnotes is quite a small portion of people for those electing psychology as a 3/4 in comparison to the state it would be fantastic for all of us to help each other out to get the best score possible!

Asides from that, in this thread we could post as many resources as possible for one another that would be helpful in getting our best scores we're all capable in achieving!

I'm so excited for it!Not my other subjects!

[shadows]

I'm doing psych as well

Is anyone using the oxford psych book this year? Idk why my school changed from the grivas one since I hear it is better.... Would it be wise to get grivas as an additional textbook?

Does anyone here have a good psych dictionary to recommend for VCE?

What are your plans on the holidays for psych?

I hope psych next year will be interesting and very rewarding to all of you!

[LastOfUs]

Is anyone using the oxford psych book this year? Idk why my school changed from the grivas one since I hear it is better.... Would it be wise to get grivas as an additional textbook?

Yes! I bought this book and the StudyOn Jacarnda thing for Psychology. Some great news is that a teacher from Firbank wrote that text book who is the chief psychology assessor, so he trains a panel of 150+ people when marking the exams afterwards so its perfect. Firbank, Shelford and Brighton Grammar psychology students are all required to go to his lectures as well which will be helpful hopefully!

Does anyone here have a good psych dictionary to recommend for VCE?

Wouldn't know where to start but I wouldn't think it's necessary unless you mean glossary. I'm going to download a tonne of notes people have made as well as StudyOn and text book notes and combine them when making a glossary which will give me a perfect list and outline of the course.

What are your plans on the holidays for psych?

I may sound overly ambitious but I would like to get 2/3 of the course done between the last four weeks of my holidays through 2-3 hours a day. I'd rather put a bullet in my head doing that with other subjects but so far with the minimal amount of time studying I've done (coincidentally in detention for 3 hours) it was REALLY enjoyable and making notes for it with tonnes of colour and SmartART is just fun ... but time consuming. If you look at my signature you'll see that all my subjects are really content heavy so I think if I got 1-2 of them under my belt during the holidays and just studied them an hour a week throughout the year and spammed exams later on, I'd be ready! So I'm basically risking burning out in the hopes of not burning out.

I hope psych next year will be interesting and very rewarding to all of you!

Same! I'm so excited because I feel like it's the first subject where everything could go well for me. I have a fantastic teacher who works part-time so she is always available as she does like nothing around the school asides from psychology whom also makes notes, exams and practice SACS etc. (for a price LOL) but it still shows that she is a good teacher. With the subject in terms of content, I'm just plain excited for 90% of it as it just seems relatable to real life and may teach me some useful things.

[shadows]

Yes! I bought this book and the StudyOn Jacarnda thing for Psychology. Some great news is that a teacher from Firbank wrote that text book who is the chief psychology assessor, so he trains a panel of 150+ people when marking the exams afterwards so its perfect. Firbank, Shelford and Brighton Grammar psychology students are all required to go to his lectures as well which will be helpful hopefully! Wouldn't know where to start but I wouldn't think it's necessary unless you mean glossary. I'm going to download a tonne of notes people have made as well as StudyOn and text book notes and combine them when making a glossary which will give me a perfect list and outline of the course.I may sound overly ambitious but I would like to get 2/3 of the course done between the last four weeks of my holidays through 2-3 hours a day. I'd rather put a bullet in my head doing that with other subjects but so far with the minimal amount of time studying I've done (coincidentally in detention for 3 hours) it was REALLY enjoyable and making notes for it with tonnes of colour and SmartART is just fun ... but time consuming. If you look at my signature you'll see that all my subjects are really content heavy so I think if I got 1-2 of them under my belt during the holidays and just studied them an hour a week throughout the year and spammed exams later on, I'd be ready! So I'm basically risking burning out in the hopes of not burning out. Same! I'm so excited because I feel like it's the first subject where everything could go well for me. I have a fantastic teacher who works part-time so she is always available as she does like nothing around the school asides from psychology whom also makes notes, exams and practice SACS etc. (for a price LOL) but it still shows that she is a good teacher. With the subject in terms of content, I'm just plain excited for 90% of it as it just seems relatable to real life and may teach me some useful things.

Wow, you are so ambitious! I hope hard work on the holidays really pays off!
Personally, I think it would be much better spending my holidays brushing up skills on chem, english and specialist rather than working ahead in Psych.... because if I work too ahead I won't remember by the time particular content in psych is taught in class. Maybe I will really focus Research methods/ ERA write up on the holidays.

What is your process for working ahead through the course? Reading and taking notes all throughout? I did methods last year, so preparing by spamming questions is what I am used to. Probably won't work as well when I am in Psychology.
Any tips on memorising content/ note taking? LOL, you must be really good at it since you are doing mainly memory/content subjects next year!

[Eugenet17]

I'm aiming to go through the majority of Unit 3 by the end of the holidays, writing my own notes and doing review questions etc. I've never felt like psychology work was truly homework since it's so interesting haha. But we'll have to see, time is limited and I have other subjects to get ahead in too :x

[LastOfUs]

I'm aiming to go through the majority of Unit 3 by the end of the holidays, writing my own notes and doing review questions etc. I've never felt like psychology work was truly homework since it's so interesting haha. But we'll have to see, time is limited and I have other subjects to get ahead in too :x

Completely agree. However I really really *hate* memorising definitions which is the killer in psychology, when you can't *understand* the definition but just have to integrate certain words with a stream of replicating words. Hate it!

[LOLs99]

Completely agree. However I really really *hate* memorising definitions which is the killer in psychology, when you can't *understand* the definition but just have to integrate certain words with a stream of replicating words. Hate it!

Don't memorize all the definitions  from memory I don't find a lot of definition questions in the exam this year. There are lots of application questions.

Oxford is really detailed for Unit 3 but not that great for Unit 4 I found. Overall Grivas is better 

[kawfee]

Sorry to butt in...but for those who wish to learn content on the holidays...I don't suggest you write dot points and summarise every page and chapter. That's what I did...basically on the holidays I went through EVERY page and wrote points down and realized that most of what I had written like about psychiatrists and other stuff was not relevant. So I highly suggest you print out the STUDY DESIGN...then go through it and look for information! Just a heads up so you guys are headed in the right direction unlike I was prior to starting 3/4 at school...mind you the work and effort I did over the summer holidays was a ultimately pointless...because I didn't know the Study Design existed! :S

[darklight]

Don't go through too much, I would say, because it's content-based and so by the time end of Unit 3 rolls around you probably won't remember much. Rather, what you do learn, learn WELL!

Learn AOS 1. When you get to Memory (whether in school or during the holidays) make sure you NAIL it, because that's an area a lot of people struggle with as it isn't as clear-cut!

Good luck 2014'ers. I will miss Psych a lot next year!

[LastOfUs]

Would anyone happen to be selling a 'Grivas' text book?

[sjayne]

There is actually a new edition of the Grivas textbook (5th). Not to sure what the differences are but according to my teacher the changes are pretty relevant I think if your school is doing anxiety or something.. :/
Any advice for newcomers who haven't done 1/2?

[LastOfUs]

Not sure.

All I know is for ASC we are focusing on Alcohol induced and another one ... like meditative or something.

[zvezda]

There is actually a new edition of the Grivas textbook (5th). Not to sure what the differences are but according to my teacher the changes are pretty relevant I think if your school is doing anxiety or something.. :/
Any advice for newcomers who haven't done 1/2?

Im sure youve heard this before but in case you havent, familiarise yourself with research methods because thats really the only concept that carries through from 1/2 to 3/4. Otherwise it would be beneficial to revise regularly, even if its just 20-30 mins a night; itll help keep things fresh in the mind.

[Politics]

From what my teacher said, the new edition of the Grivas textbook was mainly alterations and additions/subtractions to cater for the new Study Guide.

[Vermilliona]

Hey 2014'ers, looking forward to psych next year! Are any of you doing AOS1 in the holidays? How do you plan to make notes for psych (linear, mind maps etc)?