How To Get An A In A Level Psychology (year 1)

Hi all, in this article I will 5 quick and easy tips on `How to get an A in A Level Psychology (Year 1)`.

Disclaimer: I only did Psychology for my first year of college and got an A grade. I dropped Psychology at second year to carry on with Maths, Biology and Chemistry.

1) Start EARLY Psychology is one of them A Levels where there s so much content that you have to memorise and recall correctly. You need to start early, months in advance. If you begin revising in the last month (very common in GCSE s) you may not get the result that you want. Additionally, you need to develop essay writing skills for psychology and to do this, it will be best if you work to develop them skills over a longer period of time. With so much content to learn and revise, it is not sensible at all to leave it all till last minute you may not finish on time. In my opinion, you most likely won t finish on time as you will have your other subjects to revise for too.

2) Find out which techniques work for you as soon as possible Try out as many techniques as you can in the first few months if you still don t know what works for you in terms of studying. Test yourself on the content you ve studied with each technique and see what seems to work for you. Once you find that technique stick with it for the subject it works best in. I used notes and flashcards as they were most effective for me. I then completed an essay on each and every topic there was on the syllabus and asked my teacher to mark them. Following this, I reflected on the feedback given to me. NB: Different study techniques will be better suited to different A Level subjects.

3) Complete as many essay s and past paper questions that you can access. Yes there are new specifications and so you might think the old past papers aren`t useful. That isn t actually true. Even though there are new specifications, some of the topics in the new syllabus were part of the old syllabus so some past paper questions are still relevant to the new specification and you should take FULL ADVANTAGE of these as you can learn from the mark schemes.

4) Build a good relationship with your teacher This is important for all subjects really. If you get on well with your teacher (initiate a good relationship by showing you re very keen to do well) then your teacher will be more willing to help you than if you just simply annoy them and fail to complete work on time. Keep doing essays throughout the year on top of homework and ask your teacher to mark them regularly. You ll remember what you learn if you keep working hard for over a longer period of time and review content regularly.

5) Improve your timing throughout the year Psychology is an essay based subject where you re required to write a lot in the exams under timed pressure. I strongly recommend practicing essays and exam questions within the time frame that you will be given in the actual exams. Keep practicing until you can write essays / answer questions within the time limit. You will also benefit here from test yourself again and again on the knowledge / course content as well as improving your timing. Get a stopwatch app on your phone or an actual stopwatch whichever you prefer.

Bonus tip: Look after yourself. Take breaks. Eat and drink plenty and ensure you get 7-8 hours of sleep every night!

Lastly, I would like to wish you all the very best with your a level subjects and future endeavours. If you have any questions, please do feel free to get in touch.