Exam Thoughts & Review

[MeLucky]

what did everyone put for the adaptive plasticity short answer? like the features of adaptive plasticity? I put that the brain  changes its neural structure or function as a result of everyday experience and changes to compensate for damage. I dont think ill get the marks though.

I put
-occurs in response to brain trauma
-can change the role of certain brain areas in order to compensate for the brain trauma
Probs get 1 mark or something :/

[REBORN]

How bad was the exam-split.

I think about 8 on Lazarus....4 on plasticity....

[Anon123]

Yeah the adaptive plasticity question was silly....I really hated these questions.

For adaptive plasticity I put down everything lol, I had know idea what "features were", I guessed they were either
-compensates for loss of function
-enables adjustment to experience

OR

-rerouting
-sprouting

I put everything down >.>

And they had a question about the strengths and limitations of CBT for Depression...the fuck? We never learnt the strengths and weaknesses of CBT at all, like I genuinely had to completely make up stuff on the spot...a really badly written exam, something I really never expected from VCAA. The mid year I thought was ok - with the exception of section C, but this exam was horrid.

[monkeywantsabanana]

I thought SA was the easiest section and MCQ was the hardest :/

The issue for most people, including myself, is that we had not answered those types of questions before >.>
So while most of the responses were quite clear in what would be right, it was hard to word and actually respond to them in a way that would get full marks...I dunno, I found that I didn't know specifically what they wanted, so I ended up writing heaps for each question

THIS!

[navs123]

for question 3 would continous reinforcement get any marks?

[REBORN]

for question 3 would continous reinforcement get any marks?

Doubt it. That's actually the quickest to extinguish and the question wanted consistency :/

[Zafaraaaa]

what did everyone put for the adaptive plasticity short answer? like the features of adaptive plasticity? I put that the brain  changes its neural structure or function as a result of everyday experience and changes to compensate for damage. I dont think ill get the marks though.

I put this (but tried to not make it look like I was just pulling definition out of book) and also put "it can occur at any time throughout the lifespan in response to a person's encounters with their environment (e.g. through an acquired head injury in a car crash)..

I was kind of panicked when my friends said they put rerouting and sprouting :O I thought they were the processes of it, not the key features

[MeLucky]

And they had a question about the strengths and limitations of CBT for Depression...the fuck? We never learnt the strengths and weaknesses of CBT at all, like I genuinely had to completely make up stuff on the spot...a really badly written exam, something I really never expected from VCAA. The mid year I thought was ok - with the exception of section C, but this exam was horrid.

haha yeah..what'd you write?
I wrote the strength is that it takes into account thought processed and behaviours and tries to replace the negative thought with positive thoughts.
For weakness, I said it doesn't attempt to fix any underlying biological causes of major depression

[rosiepop]

But Grivas Book says flooding has no relaxation 
Y they lie for??

Even so, the question said they were gonna chuck him straight into the snake enclosure with no help or support... how on earth could that ever be systematic desensitization...?
It could only of been flooding since there was no fear heirachy involved and they didn't work up to it eg, looking at pictures of snakes, watching tv show about snakes, looking at snake outside enclosure... they just chucked the poor bloke straight in there which is flooding!

[nemolala]

The appraisal question worth 4 marks was just.....

[REBORN]

But Grivas Book says flooding has no relaxation 
Y they lie for??

Even so, the question said they were gonna chuck him straight into the snake enclosure with no help or support... how on earth could that ever be systematic desensitization...?
It could only of been flooding since there was no fear heirachy involved and they didn't work up to it eg, looking at pictures of snakes, watching tv show about snakes, looking at snake outside enclosure... they just chucked the poor bloke straight in there which is flooding!

it said learned relaxation response. that's where people got fooled...not as easy as you made it out to be

[nemolala]

so in mid years they freakin be dumb about it and give us a stupid section c.
Now they bloody get all weird on us with ambiguous SA.

Thanks VCAA.

[rosiepop]

But Grivas Book says flooding has no relaxation 
Y they lie for??

Even so, the question said they were gonna chuck him straight into the snake enclosure with no help or support... how on earth could that ever be systematic desensitization...?
It could only of been flooding since there was no fear heirachy involved and they didn't work up to it eg, looking at pictures of snakes, watching tv show about snakes, looking at snake outside enclosure... they just chucked the poor bloke straight in there which is flooding!

it said learned relaxation response. that's where people got fooled...not as easy as you made it out to be

Yeah i guess that's true.. but i think i just ignored that and went straight to the fact that he was put straight into the enclosure lol

[harlequinphoenix]

Section C was shit, use of the word "weaknesses" very very annoying, should have been more specific like "extraneous/confounding variables". Terrible wording of the question and gave a very vague idea of mark allocation in my opinion. Ugh.
I agree with everyone saying some of the MC were ambiguous...
Short answers were okay but I didn't like the question where we were only asked to write about primary appraisal for those 2 girls.  And strengths and weaknesses of CBT? I agree - out of all the things to talk about with CBT they pick something not in the study design and that is not in the books.

The snake question I thought was strange too. flooding doesn't really involve relaxation, but I guess it's implied as eventually anxiety diminishes and a new association is made. Definitely wasn't any of the other answers though.
overall not a very well written exam, but not overly hard in terms of content. However what did makes it ten times harder was when, as I said about CBT, they put stuff in that no one even has an an opportunity to LEARN. it just pisses me off. There's SO much on the study design can't they bloody stick to it to make it a tiny bit easier for students.

[amilss]

And they had a question about the strengths and limitations of CBT for Depression...the fuck? We never learnt the strengths and weaknesses of CBT at all, like I genuinely had to completely make up stuff on the spot...a really badly written exam, something I really never expected from VCAA. The mid year I thought was ok - with the exception of section C, but this exam was horrid.

i totally agree!
i just made up shit too
for a strength i said something along the lines that it addresses cognitive bias' or something which is a major cause of thinking in people with the depression and the behaviours

for a disadvantage i said requires motivation and participation, which they are obviously lacking. lol

SECTION C = ((((((