NHSpsychoblog2

so probably about 8-9 hours of Psychology, depending on your timetable…..

That’s not much….

Having done the mock exam, you should now be fuly aware of the task you’ve got to do - DO NOT UNDER-ESTIMATE IT!! The exam will test your understanding and application of knowledge, as well as whether you know ‘the facts’ - this will not come if you leave it to the last minute to revise. For the last few lessons, we want to concentrate on the exam techniques that you need to maximise your marks (as requested by you!!) - however, the most basic technique that will get most marks is LEARN IT!! we can’t do anything more sophisticated if you don’t know your stuff - so start now!!

Someone asked how much revision you should be doing - rough answer, average 1 hour per day for every exam you are taking up until you go out on study leave; then try and average 2 hours per day for every exam you are taking. (if you’re not resitting anything, you could up it to 3 hours…).
This means using the time effectively, not just staring at your folders, or watching the birds build nests…. spending hours in your room is not the same thing as studying….
“but I won’t have a life!” I hear you cry!! - Yep, true - you’re doing your A Levels - everything else goes on hold, but it’s only for a few weeks, you’ll survive; payback time comes in July…..

We can’t say this too often - you’ve simply got to get on with learning it!! We could do a correlational study here - the hypothesis is “The more time spent writing notes and sample answers before the exam, the higher the grade achieved will be.” (I’d put money on this producing a statistically significant result!!)……..

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Advice so far has focussed on planning what you have to do, and then on how you’re going to do it, ie how you learn material according to your preferred methods.

For most of us, we actually learn best when we are processing material in several different ways - some of you worked this out last week - you might think you are a ‘visual’ learner, but just looking isn’t enough - you have to DO something (like mind-mapping, highlighting etc) and this is kinaesthetic. And there’s a warning for ‘kinaesthetic’ learners - if you just do ‘kinaesthetic’ activities, it’s much harder work, and takes longer, and you have to be more creative. This doesn’t necessarily mean you have to be physically moving about all over the place though - writing is kinaesthetic!! 

If you think about what you know from cognitive psychology, this should make sense - memory is most improved when we learn it semantically, whatever our preferred ’style’.

This week, doing the mock exam, the emphasis is on reconstructing your knowledge in the context of a test. If you think ‘cognitive’ psychology, you will know you will need ‘cues’ to trigger chains of memory - so in the final stages of revision concentrate on these. You have been given general ‘formulae’ for how to answer particular types of question - make sure you look at these again this week, and organise your information accordingly!

and I could say good luck, but the only ‘luck’ involved is getting your favourite question - it shouldn’t matter what the question is; if you’ve done the work you should be able to get the marks even if it isn’t your favourite thing - so, target for everyone - Grade A!!!!!

(and this mock is important - if anything goes wrong in the summer, your final mark could depend it!)

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Ok, back to school - and time to really focus on these little tests coming up.

Previous posts have given you hints about planning a revision schedule - you should have done this by now - if you haven’t, you’re already behind!!

Having planned what you’ve got to do, this week you need to think seriously about how you are going to do it - the trick is to make your time efficient, and DO SOMETHING - not just stare at your folders forever….

Class activities this week have been devised with particular learning styles in mind - the question you need to ask is - did your method work? ie did you learn material, and manage to write it down to get full marks. If the answer is no, you need to adjust what you do.

Suggestions as to how to do it were around in the classroom - if you want a copy, just ask me. Alternatively revision suggestions can be found in the ‘Support for Learning’ section on the school website.

This week’s homework is to learn material - make sure you do this effectively this weekend - it’ll be one thing off your list later……    Don’t forget this means being able to write it down, not just ‘have it in your head’.

and if you find you still struggle with this, ask for more help - sooner rather than later!

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Firstly - a belated ‘Happy Easter’ - I assumed none of you would be looking here over the Easter weekend, so didn’t bother posting!

Anyway - down to business….

I know some people were working last week - well done you! If you worked hard last week, take the rest of this week off!!  IF YOU DIDN’T - NOW’S THE TIME TO START!!!!! 

If you haven’t mapped out how you’re going to do this term, now is the time to sort out your revision plan. And then YOU NEED TO START!!   this means ACTUALLY DO SOMETHING!!

I’d recommend you start learning the definitions - aim to learn 3 each day - 2-3 marks worth, off by heart, so you can just WRITE it down in 2-3 minutes - easy, that’s all there is to it. Just do it!

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If you’re anything like me at the moment, we can’t wait for the end of term, can we??  at the same time, there’s a looming black cloud on the distant horizon…    Not easy to enjoy your holiday when it’s threatened by torrential downpours….

So, it seemed to me that this blog could therefore serve a useful purpose here, seeing us through the revision process AND allowing us to enjoy the rest of our life too! so not so much about the subject matter of Psychology, but advice/tips and sharing to minimise stress and maximise output!

So I’m going to start with 2 main points here:

Firstly:

Do you want to do these exams? and what grade do you want?

This seems a pretty basic question doesn’t it? But it’s the key to success - exams are all about cause and effect - so think - a lot of students:-

• don’t listen to what they’re being told
• don’t read anything
• don’t write anything
• don’t practise what they are being asked to do

and are then surprised when they don’t do very well!!!  

Can you spot where they’re going wrong? looks obvious doesn’t it? These are YOUR exams, they will be YOUR results - not your parents’, not your teachers’, YOURS!!!!   This means you have got to take responsibility for them!! it should be obvious - if you do nothing, you’ll get nothing - true in exams as well as the rest of life - so don’t wait for other people to do all the work for you - get on with it yourself!!

Second:

At this time in the term, work is probably the last thing you want to be thinking about, but there are a lot of ‘low energy’ things you can do now that will ease the path later.

• Sort your notes/folders out - saves loads of time later if you can find your information quickly!!
• spend some time planning your revision schedule - a lot of students think this is a waste of time - they’re wrong! You need to have a timetable of what you’re going to revise when, for all of your subjects, so that it fits into the time available. This will save a lot of ‘thinking time’ later, cos you won’t have to make up your mind ‘what to revise today?’.  Leave it to chance, and it’s highly likely you’ll miss bits out completely, have shaky knowledge and/or get highly stressed, cos you’ll have too much to do in too little time - trust me - I’ve seen this far too many times….   

Stress management is largely about being in control - so get yourself in control sooner rather than later.

Sort this bit out now - then take a break - you need some time off over the Easter break, but then make up your mind that you’re going to work HARD when you start again!!

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no postings for far too long - as we’ve been distracted by Edmodo/Twitter - however, if you’re busy revising Psychodynamics, here’s a link to the Psychodynamics page from last year’s blog - should give you a few interesting things to think about …..   and test whether you’re understanding this approach, and give you a bit of practice in ‘unseen’ key issues.  Click here

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Unit 1 now in the past - keep checking here for all things Psychodynamic, Learning Approach or Biological - new pages specially for this!

If you find anything interesting that I can post here, just let me know!

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last 24 hours of revision to go - WRITE!  WRITE! and WRITE SOME MORE!!!   you should be able to answer any question by now!!

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another key issue here - Explain this event using concepts, theories or research fron Social Psych…    should be easy peasy!!!

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New files now on school website

Don’t tell your parents I said this, but if you haven’t seen it already, go and see Avatar to revise Social Psychology - social identity theory, stereotyping, in-groups/out-groups, ‘them and us’ language, agentic behaviour, autonomous behaviour, moral strain….    it’s all in there….

(and the film is amazing anyway…!!!)

and another thing - a great link about multi-tasking and how difficult it is - the moral being -  in the exam don’t try to think and write at the same time…..  (and thanks to Adam Robbins for the link!)

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