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Before I start, I think it is imperative that you get in to the habit of planning your response - it doesn't take long, and it will save you!! It will make you organise your ideas logically and certainly improve the quality of your language. You will be forced to be prudent in your evaluation, and examiners will totally see that you know what you are talking about!
The concise and general steps to planning and answering questions
1. Read the Q twice (or as many times depending on your need)
2. Highlight or underline the key words
3. Annotate the Q and break it down
4. Plan your response, including what you know as relevant to the question
5. Brainstorm evaluative points & ensure it is balances (for 22-mark questions)
PLAN for 8-mark Qs
- Expect low/medium command terms (CTs) and so LEARN what they mean!! A good flash card game can be found here
- Define, Describe, Outline, State, Discuss, Contrast, Compare, Explain, Distinguish, Apply
- Break down your response in the same way as the CT can be broken down
- What is the topic?
- What did the CT ask?
- What is my assertion?
- What study am I going to use to support my claim?
- 1-2 study is enough to illustrate each concept
- Did the CT ask for my opinion at the end?
- Be concise (you don’t have much time!)
PLAN for 22-mark Qs
- Expect medium/higher order CTs
- Describe, Discuss, Contrast, Compare, Explain, Distinguish, Apply, Analyse, Compare and Contrast, Evaluate, Examine, To what extent
- Break down your response in the same way as the CT can be broken down
- What is the topic?
- What did the CT ask?
- What is my assertion? Should have multiple!
- What study am I going to use to support my claim?
- multiple study is enough to illustrate each concept
- What study am I going to use to evaluate my claim?
- 22 marker always require some form of evaluation
- What happens to my original claim now?
- Did the CT ask for my opinion at the end?
- Structure it to have broad idea at the start which funnel down into narrower ideas
- Good to have an introduction that clearly states your scope, what you will be focusing about so that the examiners know exactly what you are doing.
- Good structured response should have intro-body-conclusion format
- Be concise (you don’t have time!!)
Sentence work/structure using example!!
Example: To what extent does genetic inheritance influence behaviour?
First, give a nice and short intro and state your opinion.
- Define the relevant terms very briefly and give your opinion if the command term asks you
- Example: Genetics, defined as ................ , is believed to play significant role in human behaviour. There are many debates on this topic and some psychologists assert their own claim to the most accurate approach, but I believe that this debate cannot be resolved. Genetic inheritance does influence our behaviour, but only to an extent. Some behaviour is very much shaped from our social constructions.....
- Include the points that you are going to make and the studies that you will use to demonstrate your points
- Example: In order to examine to what extent genetic inheritance influence behaviour, this essay will focus on the explanation towards depression through discussing the Bouchard et al.’s study (year) and Seligman et al.’s (year).
Then, start your body paragraph
- Start with your key point – thesis
- Example: Genetic inheritance does play a significant amount in shaping our behaviour. This can be clearly seen through correlation studies that specifically look at depression of monozygotic twins.
- Give details on your key point
- Include studies to back up your claim. Make sure you give significant amount of depth to your answers
- Example: Monozygotic twins share 100% same genes. Thus, if genetics do influence behaviour, both should exhibit the same behaviour. On the other hand, dizygotic twins only share 30% of the same gene and thus have less correlation to each other. Bouchard et al’s study explicitly employs this concept of correlation, and looks into depression between twins. In their study, they analysed twins that are monozygotic and dizygotic and found that x% of monozygotic twins had correlation of depression while y% of dizygotic twins had correlation of depression. This suggests that genetics do play a role in human behaviour, as the more biologically similar you are to someone, the more similar your behaviours are to them...
- Synthesise your key point to answer what the question is asking
- Example; Hence (Thus, In light of this, In conclusion) through ........’s study we can see that there is a direct correlation between the genetics and our behaviour.
Give another paragraph with the same format. But be careful what you write! Since this question is a to what extent question, you have to give a counter argument of what you just wrote on the previous paragraph.
- Start with a linking sentence that gives a contradiction to the first body paragraph
- Use words like;
- However
- Nevertheless
- Contrastingly
- On the other hand
- Suggest that not all the cases support your claim in body 1.
- Then go on and give details on why you think so
- Contradicting studies
- Studies from different areas of psychology is often good
- Example; Although Bouchard’s study revealed that depression is related to genetics, psychologists from other areas give a different explanation towards explaining depression. For example, Seligman’s study suggested that depression can be a learned behaviour rather than what we inherit from birth. In Seligman’s study, he..................(goes on to explain the experiment). Hence, Seligman concluded that depression is not necessarily what we are predisposed to, but what we can adapt to and learn from society. This directly refutes the idea that depression is genetically inherited and questions the whole concept the extent to which genetics can be applied to explaining human behaviour.
- Some up your claim just like how you did for the last paragraph
Hope you guys find this helpful!
Edited by ecieee, Aug 14, 2011 - 13:17.
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