Hi there! I'm currently in year 9 going into year 10 next year at a new school. And next year I'm going to be doing early advancement for VCE Psychology. You probably know what that is, but if you don't, it's where I'll do units 1 and 2 in year 10 and units 3 and 4 in year 11. I obviously don't know much at all about VCE so any overall advice/tips would be great. I really want to do well and get an ATAR of 93 to get into the course I want.
So regarding psych, I'm wondering what you found the hardest topics to be? And also in the exam, I've heard section C is really tricky so maybe a bit of advice on that?
Also, did you like pysch? I think it sounds super interesting and doesn't seem too hard.
I'd really appreciate your answers, thanks so much!!
Hi Lily,
Hmm.. the transactional model of stress and coping was probably what I found most difficult.
what this model is
The model describes how we psychologically evaluate and cope with stress. This is split into different components, such as when we first appraise the stressor, and evaluation of resources we can use to deal with it. It's not super complicated, but the bane confused me a bit because I was unsure on why this was a "transaction between the person and their environment" , hence being called the transactional model.
Lots of people did struggle with section C, but that's not really in the exam anymore. Instead, research based questions are spread throughout the exam and there's a 10 mark question requiring detailed response. There's a thread where I have posted up research related questions for people to practice with, and you're certainly welcome to read through that and have a go at any of the questions. I'd say that there are 3 components to doing well at these questions: 1) memory: knowing the terminology, common examples etc. 2) Conceptual understanding. Last year's exam had a few of these that hit students really hard because they had never been taught how to respond, but students who really understood the topics could adapt to it and respond appropriately 3) Linking to the scenario. Psychology places a strong emphasis on responding to the context (eg. If asked a question about a dog learning something, refer to the dog in your answer)
Psychology wasn't originally part of my VCE plan but I'm glad I studied it. Unit 1 is a bit less interesting for lots of people, but especially later on, the topics you cover are really applicable to the " real world".
I didn't know anything about VCE when I started it doing early advancement for biology (btw I hadn't heard that term before, so thank you for explaining what you meant), so definitely don't feel that you're behind or disadvantaged for that.
There are some great guides in the Victorian Technical Score Discussion section of the forums, but also be aware that they have a high level of detail which many students never learn.
Basically (this is an oversimplification using rough numbers), for each VCE subject you are graded on a bell curve, with scores ranging from zero to fifty. Being graded on a bell curve means that the score you get is based on how well you do compared to the other students in the state studing that subject. Eg. If you perform better than most students you'll get a 30+ study score, if you are in the top ten percent you'll get a 40+ study score.
Once you have completed enough VCE subjects (at the end of year 12) your study scores are added together to form an aggregate. If your aggregate is higher than 90% of the state, you'll get a 90+ ATAR. It might sound daunting to think that you need to score higher than 93% of the state to achieve your goal, and it WILL require hard work, but remember that this figure also includes students who don't want to go to uni etc.
Out of interest, what course do you want to get into?
I hope that this helps, and feel free to ask more questions