Unit 3 Psychology exam 2012 discussion
By Heath McGregor on Jun 13, 2012 in VCE Exams, VCE Psychology
Hi all,
Congratulations on finishing the Unit 3 VCE Psychology exam for 2012. What did you think of the paper? What was hard? What was easy? How do you think you went?
Let us know your thoughts and comments below (please keep them clean – all comments are moderated anyway!)…cheers
(17 votes, average: 2.82 out of 5)
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@Hannah I included the 5 mnemonic devices in my IV, but I think if you only mentioned one that would still be fine. I don’t think any marks would be allocated for listing the mnemonic devices, it would be more for the actual research methods part (IV, DV, hypothesis, ethical considerations, research design, etc.)
I could be wrong though!
what is the website for the answers???
Yeah I didn’t go into much detail on the definition aspect of mnemonic devices.
I used them in my hypothesis and IV
One place I lost marks for was the ticking boxes for the synaesthesia question. I think I picked Wernicke’s area by mistake. Never thought to study the exact position of the auditory cortex, aha….
@Claudia there is none yet. Not sure when we do get them, but it might not be until we get our grades in August, maybe? I wouldn’t have a clue.
Actually i did do all the past VCAA exams and did speak about that so yeah just wanted to be certain
@panicked Galvanic skin response would have been a perfectly fine answer.
aced it!
found it long but didn’t struggle with anything
pretty good exam overall
GSR person, yes it is, that’s what i wrote anyway… so i hope so for both our sakes!
in the girl hitting her head one, it said “she CLAIMED she couldn’t remember it” i think overall it was simply suppression, it was upsetting and she preffered not to think about it, i don’t think repression came into it.
did anyone get the question in the multiple choice about how group 1 couldn’t verbalise the object on the right or something like that?
it threw me off
@candice
I too also went and read it as mnemonic deviceS so I listed every single mnemonic device, the thing is that I really hope they are not marking on definition, because I purposely chose not to define each one due to the fact I was short on time
I also read everything else with plural so I listed 2 ethical considerations, 2 methods of data collection and 2 extraneous variables and how to minimize them, they better not mark on definition!
all we had to do was to give and IV, DV and research hypothesis (plus ethical considerations, blah blah), for our own experiment. We weren’t told to explain any mnemonic device, so i think that we were meant to just pick one.
Which boxes did everyone tick in regards to synesthesia (in particular the temporal lobe)?
did anyone else find it difficult to complete in time ? :/
i found i didn’t finish the extended response entirely…
Reading through these comments I’m a lot more confident with my short answers.
However i found some of the multiple choice questions ambiguous or misleading. think I screwed some of them up :S
was going to write supression. But when prompted about the event she couldn’t easily recall it? Which you would be able to with supression as it is a conscious effort. So I wrote repression – oddly worded question!
You had to operationalise the variables as well
@Jacob
what are some methods of data collection people used?
also would heart rate/ ECG be a physiological measure?
For you guys wondering what synaesthesia is, it’s worth reading up on coz it’s super interesting! I defined it as a cross modal sensory experience where the stimulation of one sensory modality (system) causes a cognitive process or perception in another sensory modality (system) – e.g. if you hear a certain word it causes you to taste a certain flavour or see a certain colour etc
There are two main theories:
- Genetics (because it tends to run in families)
- The retention of extra neural connections from infancy (they think we have certain neural pathways as babies connecting different sense systems, eg. taste and hearing, and in most people they diminish as we reach childhood/adulthood…but in synaesthetes they remain)
I agreed with the motivated forgetting thing because she “preferred not to remember”
@Dave yeah I didn’t define them either, just listed them. as i said, i doubt marks were allocated for whether or not ‘mnemonic devices’ was defined or how many mnemonic devices were used as an example, etc.
@Mary technically you’re very correct, though ECG isn’t listed on the study design so I don’t know if they’ll give it a mark or not. But for your sake I hope it’s fine!
for the multiple chice question revolving around the dbs patient, does anyone know if it was a case study?
i didnt finish my extended response. i barely started it
i operationalised my iv and dv in my hypothesis so i didnt actually say, “the iv is… the dv is…”. do you think i’ll still get the marks for the iv and dv even though i didnt actually specify that they were the iv and dv?
Yeah me to! I found i was rushing the extended response at the end.. Didnt get to put everything i wanted!
Awkward as it actually said she “tried” to forget it… hahaha
I started with extended response first, then did the multiple choice. Though I was a bit rushed for SA, I definitely got the ER done!
Oh and what do you guys think about 3 marks being allocated for that declarative memory question with the young people and the old people? Seemed like way too many marks for that question…..
I know lost 4 marks for the most stupid stuff!
I wrote that the guy who hit his head would experience a distorted perception of time, and I was going to write about perceiving time to go faster or slower than reality, but then I thought, how could his friend test this?? So i said that the friend could ask him what day of the week it was, would that still be right? its still a perception of time?
also i go to one of the best private schools in melbourne and my teacher never taught us anything about theories of synaethesia so yay lovin lyfe…
And when I was writing my answer for the question of declarative memories with age, i wrote slowing of the cns, less confidence and at the time i was like oh I really should write less motivation but then I was like no i really need to do extended response! hating myself
by the sounds of it im worried what mark i’ll get! I did 20 practice exams though!!
candice can distorted perception of time also be not knowing what day of the week it is?
A+ last year was 74%, but the exam was much harder
Lol guys that was a really hard exam!!
Compared to last years, it was too long and some of the multi choice questions were shitty as
it was okay, except their were some really badly worded questions and i found the one about the boy who does theatre and his state dependent cues really weird. Also, with the extended response, i had two research assistants so i put an extraneous variable as experimenter related, since it was not the same person giving the instructions… is that right?
I thought the exam was pretty fair, a few dodgy questions though but I think it’ll be fine cos everyone would have struggled with them.
The answers are up on Connect Education’s website, written by the lecturer who got a 50!! So glad I went to his lecture, a few of the questions that came up were pretty much the same as the lecture questions the guy went through!
The link is connecteducation.com.au for anyone that wants to check it out! Made me feel better about quite a few of the questions like the suppression and synesthesia one!
Nathan do you have to pay for the notes?
That exam was so easy, mind you I did get a 50 in PE last year so I am quite smart. I am ranked 1 at my school for SACS this year and feel as if I nailed that exam, so should be looking at another score above 48 at least. If anyone needs psych tutoring, let me know as I am available.
Peace
@GB I would be inclined to say that your answer would be accepted, because it does demonstrate knowledge of characteristics which distinguish an ASC from NWC. However, generally time orientation refers to a person’s perception of what time of the day it is, or how much time has passed in terms of hours/minutes. So I’m unsure if ‘day of the week’ would be an accurate example. Again, perhaps your assessor/s will see your answer as sufficient and give you the mark, or perhaps not!
I’m interested in seeing how they mark the extended response, because there would be such a variation in answers (for example, extraneous variables and methods of controlling them, research designs and how they would be implemented, etc.)
i wrote time orientation and that he could ask his friend whether time was going slower or faster than NWC, btw I don’t go to a Private school but still knew that:)
Hey what score can I expect if I got around 90% in the Midyear exam and I am in the top 5 in my school rankings?
Does that still mean that i can get a really high score? and what score would i be looking at? both out of 25 and for the end of the year.
Thanks
does anyone know the answer for the first short answer question?
Shut up I hope you don’t get a 50 you cocky piece of work!!! GRRR
I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw an A+. How did everyone else go? Also, good luck to all for the end of the year.
how important are year 12 midyear exams? There’s always a room for improvement at the end of year exams right?
@Ashhh technically year 12 midyear exams are important but remember that VCE is a cumulative certificate so if you are unsatisfied with your results then just work harder and make it up at the end of year. Good luck for the rest of the year.
Do you guys know what the cut off was for an A+ ?
I got an A+ as well! what was the cut off mark? does anyone know!?
hey the cut off was 73/90
psych is killing meeeeeeeeee
just wondering, are we allowed to take a dictionary to the unit 4 exam that’s coming up?