Course Revision

[toeynawa]

Hello all

I'm stressing out, (while revising for health option on stress, hah) My school has been very carefree about Psychology. We studied the whole course based on Crane's course companion only.

May is coming up and I want to revise the whole course, do you guys know sources or method of reviewing? Any input would be helpful since I am isolated and clueless from how IB psychology should be.

Thanks in advance guys!

[Julie]

Look for Psychology books that aren't IB, but cover the same topics. Review those topics and learn any extra info from them that your IB Companion doesn't have and that you think helps you understand more. Go to official Psychology sites (for example, scientific american mind) and read up on articles about the topic from the IB Companion.

As a method of reviewing, I would suggest writing down all of the studies on note-cards and just memorizing. Make sure you know all definitions from the book. In order to do this effectively, pretend like you have to write an SAQ about them all- could you explain the vocab. word with studies, other definitions and knowledge you use in about 250 words? Also, get you hands on some past IB exams and look at the mark schemes- are they expecting information that you wouldn't think of giving? If not, learn and practice the stuff they want. Having friends quiz you on definitions, studies, explanations of theories, etc. is also good. You verbally have to communicate your ideas, so if you are good at verbally communicating them, it means that all of the information is organized in you head.

Those are my largest suggestions. The smaller suggestion is just the obvious- review a little each day so all the info makes it into your long term memory

[blindpet]

That's solid advice Julie. Another important thing is to find out how you learn best, everybody has their 'method' that makes the info stick. Some people like to rewrite their notes over and over, others like to create study guides or use flash cards. Just don't forget to encode the information semantically rather than just rote memorizing.

There are revision sources that can be helpful in gather data and extra info not found in your course book like at Crane's blog, Psychology MSPrior and my own blog.

[Hexa]

We're going to be starting reviewing soon too.

The questions are usually general so my teacher recommended that we learn 6 as different as possible studies REALLY well from each of the levels of analysis and psychology and the option.

That's probably what I'll end up doing as it won't take as long as reviewing everything, which should give me more time to study for the other tests (Which tbh I care more about).

[katrinaloveshoney]

The IB psychology course companion itself isn't enough to get you the grade you want for IB. In our school, we also use this book, which is really useful in my opinion and has many case studies (although not all of the stuff inside are relevant to the IB course as it is an A-level book): http://www.amazon.co.uk/AS-Level-Psychology-Through-Diagrams/dp/0199180946

another great book: or http://www.cgpbooks.co.uk/pages/pageFlip.asp?c=PYAR71

Revising for Psychology

- make detailed and thorough notes on each topic

- make sure that each theory has at least two supporting theories and at least one study that argue against it

- memorize all case studies (important!) make flash cards, make a word document dedicated to all the studies, anything!! just memorize them and know how to use them

Here are some useful websites:

- http://ibpsychrevision.blogspot.com/

- http://ibpsychrevision.wikispaces.com/

- http://www.sparknotes.com/psychology/

And good luck!! xx