If you missed Part 1 of this article click here.

After grabbing your psychology book you can then work your way through the following list within the specification until you absorb it. A great way to do this is to basically write and re-write your notes over and over copying it from the textbook in concise essay form. You do this until it begins to stick. While you do this you also want to download the last 4 years worth of past exam papers. You can get them here:

http://www.aqa.org.uk/subjects/psychology/a-level/psychology-a-2180/past-papers-and-mark-schemes

Print the exam papers as well as the mark schemes. Then once you’ve worked your way across your tick list of bullet points from the specification a few times – its time to test yourself. Learning everything from the book is a long process I should say firstly – It took me about 1 month until I felt even remotely confident and I was revising 2 hours a day too. Start practicing each past paper in timed conditions but use a pencil. Do each paper one at a time or back to back – it’s up to you. Once you have finished – use the mark scheme to cross check your answers.

I should tell you the first time I did this I scored badly even though I felt certain I had done well. The reason for this is because of the way AQA want you to answer the questions – they have specific ways in which they want the answers and when you cross-compare to the mark schemes you will begin to understand what that is. Every point you got wrong make a list of them and then read the mark scheme. For everything you got right – read why it was right against the mark scheme too to cement it further. Then practice learning the elements you got wrong from the textbook again until you feel more confident before going back to the past papers.

You won't realise it but you're slowly absorbing everything about the exam and improving your technique. Keep practicing the past papers by rubbing out your answers and re-doing them while your still writing juggling between writing notes from the psychology textbook. You will notice that your scores suddenly begin to improve.

If you suddenly find yourself scoring well in all the papers that is a sure sign of you absorbing everything and learning to write the way AQA want you to write. They tend to ask similar styled questions across their exams and you should have a better idea of how to answer them now due to your practice and cross comparing against the mark scheme. This whole method is exactly the same for Psya2.

For Papers 1 and 2 (psya1 & psya2) the questions are smaller ranging from 1-4 markers for the most part with the biggest ever being 6-12 markers. The bigger questions require a slightly deeper understanding – usually you need to be able to outline a theory and then offer strengths or weaknesses for it (evaluate it).

With paper 1 and 2 they can pretty much ask you small or big questions on any section and if your memorising the textbooks through writing and re-writing notes you should then be able to recall smaller answers or bigger depending on what’s asked of you – this is exactly what I did and worked for me.

Psya3 & Psya4 are another ballgame completely but I will save that for next time.

For each paper I dedicated about 2 hours a day revising and it took me about 1 and a half months each for Psya1 and Psya2. I took Psya3 and Psya4 individually in the January and June exam windows in 2012 which allowed me more time for each. This is probably why I scored full marks in them as I had more time to practice and absorb my notes as opposed to Psya1 and Psya2 where I had only 3 months.

Psychology is one of those subjects that you cannot go in hoping to get lucky or “wing it” because there is specific information you need to absorb and recall – its not like maths where you can simply work out a problem but they ask you specific questions related to studies and subject matter you need to learn prior hence you need to give plenty of time absorbing the information. It is not actually hard – the hardest part is the first few weeks where you’re trying to get your head around where to begin and how to revise the theories and concepts. It does start to click after time the more you practice it.

-Saj Devshi

Click here to read: AQA Psychology Revision For A2 Psya3

If you want further help and A* Model notes that helped Saj Devshi get full marks in A2 visit his website below.

AQA Psychology A* Student – Loopa.co.uk