I just wanted to alert everyone to the fact that VCAA has made some changes to the study design, as of June 2017 (f****** VCAA, I know!).
I've briefly listed and explained these changes below, or the link to the VCAA page is here:
http://www.vcaa.vic.edu.au/Pages/vce/studies/psychology/studydesignamendments.aspx Basically, there are two key changes:
1. The effects of chronic changes to the functioning of the nervous system due to interference to neurotransmitter function, illustrated by the role of dopamine in Parkinson’s disease.
Dopamine has replaced GABA as the neurotransmitter involved in Parkinson's disease. They will accept either answer on the 2017 exam.This is actually a great amendment as it was unclear on what the role of GABA in Parkinson’s disease was. It has now been changed to Dopamine – which is much more clear-cut. As they will accept both answers on the 2017 exam, this means that VCAA can’t specifically ask about the role of dopamine or GABA, but may ask you to explain ‘one neurotransmitter that plays a role in Parkinson’s disease’, for example. I would recommend talking about dopamine if this does occur, as its role is much clearer. This also means that you don’t need to know about the role of GABA.
2.
The distinction between dyssomnias (including sleep-onset insomnia) and parasomnias (including sleep walking) with reference to the effects on a person’s sleep-wake cycleThe examples of 'narcolepsy' as a dyssomnia and 'sleep apnoea' as a parasomnia have been removed. This means that they aren't examinable any more and you shouldn't mention them in an exam answer - which sucks if you've already learnt about them (hopefully most people haven't!).
There were three other changes - which were basically just punctuation related and corrected benzodiazepines to GABA 'agonists' (they were previously listed as GABA 'antagonists').
Cheers