Exam Success in AEB Psychology

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Also available in this series (titles listed by syllabus section):

ATYPICAL DEVELOPMENT AND DEVELOPMENTAL

ABNORMAL BEHAVIOUR PSYCHOLOGY
Psychopathology Cognitive Development
John D.Stirling and Jonathan S.E. David Cohen (forthcoming)
Hellewell
Early Socialisation: Sociability
Therapeutic Approaches in and attachment
Psychology Cara Flanagan (forthcoming)
Susan Cave
PERSPECTIVES AND RESEARCH
BIO-PSYCHOLOGY
Controversies in Psychology
Cortical Functions Philip Banyard
John Stirling (forthcoming)
Ethical Issues in Psychology
The Physiological Basis of Mike Cardwell (forthcoming)
Behaviour: Neural and
hormonal processes Introducing Research and Data
Kevin Silber in Psychology: A guide to
methods and analysis
States of Awareness Ann Searle
Evie Bentley (forthcoming)
SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY
Social Influences
Memory and Forgetting Kevin Wren (forthcoming)
John Henderson
Interpersonal Relationships
Perception: Theory, develop- Diana Dwyer (forthcoming)
ment and organisation
Paul Rookes and Jane Willson
OTHER TITLES
(forthcoming)
Health Psychology
COMPARATIVE PSYCHOLOGY Anthony Curtis (forthcoming)
Reproductive Strategies Sport Psychology
John Gammon (forthcoming) Matt Jarvis (forthcoming)

iii
 Exam success
in AEB psychology

Paul Humphreys

London and New York

 First published 1999
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2002.
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001
© 1999 Paul Humphreys
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical,
or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 0-415-19092-4 (Print Edition)
ISBN 0-203-13540-7 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-17956-0 (Glassbook Format)
To Dee, my partner,
who makes all things possible
 Contents

Acknowledgements xi

1 The exam paper 1

Introduction 1
Rule 1: one answer, two skills—Skills A and B
are equally weighted 2
Rule 2: using the injunctions 4
Rule 3: using the syllabus wording 7
Rule 4: one question per sub-section 9
Rule 5: ‘includings’ are prescriptive, ‘for examples’ are
illustrative 12
Rule 6: the use of parted and quote/discuss questions 16
Rule 7: specifying how many 18
Rule 8: the Research Methods section is completely different 20
Summary 23

2 The banana skins of the psychology exam 25

Myth 1: year-on-year patterns 26
Myth 2: banker topics 27
Myth 3: the wording of the questions doesn’t really matter 28
Summary 31

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CONTENTS

3 Reading the questions 33

The Blue Peter answer 34
The parted question 38
Summary 39

4 Doing well in the exam 41

Before the exam 42
The exam itself 46
Summary 53

5 Marking the answers 55

The marking scheme 55
Decisions the examiner has to make 56
The marking criteria 56
From fail to pass and from C to A 57
Summary 59

6 Practice essays from the series 61

Practice essay 1 61
Practice essay 2 65
Practice essay 3 67
Practice essay 4 71

Appendix A: Analysis of the AEB syllabus 75

Appendix B: Illustrative exam questions 93
Appendix C: Marking criteria used in AEB A-level and
AS-level psychology 109

x
 Acknowledgements

Paul Humphreys and Routledge acknowledge the Associated

Examining Board (AEB) for granting permission to use their
examination material. The AEB do not accept responsibility for the
answers or examiner comment in Chapter 6 of this book or any other
book in the series.

xi
 1
The exam paper

Introduction
Let us begin this book with what I trust will be most welcome news to
those of you who have bought it to help you get the grade which you
need in the AEB A-level and AS-level examination papers.

There is a very limited number of questions which the examiners are

allowed to set.

Without compromising my professional integrity—or even worse,

getting fired by the examining board—I will share with you the
‘rules of the game’ which all AEB Psychology examiners have to
adhere to.
We will consider in detail the documents, such as the syllabus
content and the so-called Glossary of Terms, which the questionsetters
use, and I will show you what are and what are not legitimate questions
for your psychology course. In Appendix B at the back of the book I
have provided you with an extensive list of possible questions. Whilst
I cannot pretend that the list given is the complete list of all possible
questions which could ever be set—the examining board would fire
me for trying to do that (and examiners are always capable of
springing the odd surprise, even while observing the tight rules and
EXAM SUCCESS IN AEB PSYCHOLOGY

restraints within which they operate) —I am confident that most of

the angles are covered. This has both an up and a down side. On the
positive side it should increase your confidence to know that the
questions which can be set are limited and predictable (and, perhaps
more importantly, you can rehearse how you would deal with them
in the comfort of your own home!). The negative aspect is that it
may tempt you to learn, off-by-heart, a series of plans or model
answers to each set of questions. I will return to this point in a later
chapter, but for the moment let me just say that the preparation and
reproduction of what we call Blue Peter answers (‘here is one I made
earlier’) is not a good examination strategy. There are many reasons
for this. Most importantly they encourage rote-learning at the expense
of genuine understanding.
Let us now begin our exploration of the factors that determine which
questions can legitimately appear on your examinations papers, and
which cannot.

rule 1: ONE ANSWER, TWO SKILLS—skills A and B are

equally weighted
All questions set on the AEB Psychology syllabus—with the single
exception of those set on Research Methods (modular 7), more of this
shortly—require the examination candidate—YOU!—to demonstrate
two separate skills. Furthermore in all questions these are equally
weighted, 12 marks out of 24 for each. These two skills are named,
rather unadventurously, Skill A and Skill B.

Skill A
The Skill A requirements are for you to show:

• knowledge and
• understanding

This knowledge and understanding will be of the following aspects of

psychology (AEB 0675/0975 syllabus, 2000):

• theories
• concepts

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 THE EXAM PAPER

• studies
• methods
• applications
• ethical responsibilities of researchers
• major issues and controversies
• individual, social and cultural diversity

So we have a specified list of content and an identification of two

skills which you will need to apply to specified content items (don’t
worry, no question is going to ask you to address more than two or
three items on the list above!).
We may think of Skill A as descriptive ‘narrative’, like telling a
friend the storyline of the film you saw last night (you know, who did
what, to whom, with what outcomes and so on).
Let’s take a psychology example. If you were required to ‘Skill A’
one theory of Cognitive psychology (Developmental Psychology
section of the syllabus, sub-section 6.2) and chose to focus upon the
work of Jean Piaget, you could focus on the development of schemata,
the functional invariants of accommodation, assimilation and
equilibration, and the stages and sub-stages of cognitive development
and the characteristic abilities of the child at these stages of
development. Alternatively, you may be asked to focus upon his
research studies—what did he do? who were his participants? what
were his methods? what did he find? Finally (syllabus 6.2) you may
be required to consider applications of his work to education—for
example, classroom practices.
The important point to make is that all of these are vehicles for you
to show your knowledge and understanding of Piaget’s psychology.
The examiner is giving you the means of demonstrating your
knowledge.

Skill B
So what about Skill B? We may think of it as ‘commentary’. Let me
illustrate what I mean by going back to our earlier analogy of the
film conversation with your friend. If you begin to appraise the film
(‘that part was really scary because…’; ‘the use of music added such
a lot to the film…’) or to interpret the film (‘it seems to me that the
message was “you never get away with lying about two-timing”’)

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EXAM SUCCESS IN AEB PSYCHOLOGY

you are clearly moving beyond the descriptive level of just ‘saying
what happened’. A sports commentator will be displaying both of
these skills. He or she will not only be describing to us what is
happening but will be offering evaluation (‘the difference between
confidence and panic in the Argentinian defence was always Michael
Owen’), analysis (‘France have had 72 per cent of possession so far
but have managed only three shots on target’) and interpretation (all
that heavy stuff on tactics).
To get back to psychology (mercifully, if you’re not a football fan!),
Skill B requires you to demonstrate the following skills to the same
specific content areas listed above for Skill A:

• analysis
• evaluation
• critical awareness
• interpretation

Okay, so having identified what the skills are, how do you know
which ones are being demanded in any particular exam question?
Easy—you need to know your injunctions.

rule 2: USING THE INJUNCTIONS

A little earlier I mentioned the Glossary of Terms. This document,
published by the AEB, gives definitions of the ‘action words’
(technically, injunctions) used in exam questions. These tell you
whether you should be ‘Skill A-ing’ and/or ‘Skill B-ing’.
There are only sixteen of these so let’s get specific:

Skill A-only injunctions

Consider; define; describe; examine; explain; outline; state

Skill B-only injunctions

Analyse (or critically analyse); assess (or critically assess); criticise;
evaluate (or critically evaluate); justify

Skill A and Skill B injunctions

Compare and contrast; critically consider; distinguish between;
discuss

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 THE EXAM PAPER

Once you have learned which terms go where, test

Progress exercise
yourself by writing each injunction out on a slip of paper
and then put each into one of three piles (A-only; B-
only; A and B). Why bother? Well, if a question asks
you to describe two theories of perception (syllabus 5.1)
and you offer commentary—for example by evaluating
the theories—you will receive no credit whatsoever for
your answer from the examiner. This may sound tough
but what the questionsetters are trying to do is to let
you know exactly what they want from you. You
shouldn’t have to have Mystic Meg qualities to do well
in this exam!

The bare minimum you need to know is the above list.

I said the list above is the minimum you need to know. Let’s go one
better and look at the definitions of the injunctions which the Board
provide.

consider demonstration of knowledge and

understanding of topic
define explanation of what is meant by a particular term
describe presentation of your knowledge of the topic
examine presentation of a detailed, descriptive
consideration of the topic
explain conveyance of your understanding of topic,
which should be coherent and intelligible
outline/state summary description of topic in brief form
analyse demonstration of understanding through
consideration of the components or elements of
the topic
assess informed judgement/considered appraisal of
how good or effective something is (based on
an awareness of strengths and limitations of
information/argument presented)
criticise critical appraisal/evaluation of strengths and
weaknesses of topic

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EXAM SUCCESS IN AEB PSYCHOLOGY

evaluate informed judgement regarding the value of the

topic (based on systematic analysis and
examination)
justify consideration of the grounds for a decision (e.g.
by offering a supportive consideration of the
logic behind a particular interpretation)
compare/contrast consideration of similarities and/or differences
between topic areas (this may involve critical
consideration of points of similarity and
differentiation)
critically consider as ‘consider’ (above), but additionally an
awareness of the strengths and weaknesses of
the material presented
distinguish between demonstration of differences between topic
areas at both descriptive and critical levels of
contrasting
discuss description and evaluation by reference to
different if not contrasting points of view

I accept that this is fine detail stuff, but it will enable you to know
exactly what the question-setter wants from you. For example, compare
the Skill B-only injunctions ‘assess’ and ‘justify’. Take a moment to
re-read these carefully.
I hope it will be obvious that whereas ‘assess’ requires you to
look at both sides of an issue (‘strengths and limitations’), ‘justify’
requires you to offer only ‘a supportive consideration’. Look also at
‘examine’ and ‘outline’: although both are Skill A-only, the former
requires ‘detailed descriptive consideration’, the latter ‘a summary
description’.
Some of you may be familiar with the line from a song which goes

It ain’t what you do

It’s the way that you do it.
That’s what gets results.

The same principle is certainly true here.

(Just in case I’ve lost you: it’s not just the amount of psychology
that you know, it’s knowing what to do with it—describe it, evaluate it
etc. —that counts.)