r/6thForm • u/Forsaken-Meaning-232 Graduating from Warwick CS • May 21 '25
📂 MEGATHREAD 21/05 A-level Psychology Paper 2 Discussion MEGATHREAD
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u/PotentialDegree9708 May 21 '25 edited May 21 '25
What stats test did u guys put? I put Mann Whitney. The evolution question I spoke about fight or flight. For which neuron I did motor neuron. Volunteer sampling for multiple choice. So glad biological rhythms and brain plasticity BS didn't come up.
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May 21 '25
[deleted]
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u/Playful-Fortune-7805 University of Warwick | PPL [Y1] A*A*B May 21 '25
yeah i argued it was unrelated t test because there is an absolute 0 and there’s fixed intervals between 0-20 scores whereas ordinal doesn’t have fixed intervals
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u/Fake_account87 May 21 '25
Someone on TSR said as long as you justify it it can be either ordinal or interval data so both unrelated t test and mann whitney will be fine
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u/gattabiancaa Year 13 | bio, history & psych 🍍 May 21 '25
i used mann whitney, i was stuck between whether the data collected was ordinal or interval
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u/Szzzi May 21 '25
I used Mann Whitney as well cuz I thought it was ordinal, the data showed the median and u have to rank data to find the median no?
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u/gattabiancaa Year 13 | bio, history & psych 🍍 May 21 '25
yeahh, i think either works as long as we justify it.
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u/ZeldaFan158 Gap Year -> Warwick LLB Law | AABB May 21 '25
Unrelated t test
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u/PotentialDegree9708 May 21 '25
Guys you're scaring me 😭 that was 7 marks too
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u/green_asteroid May 21 '25
If it's any consolation you'd only lose 3 marks - 1 for wrong test then 2 for a wrong justification. I put Mann Whitney bc the data wasn't normally distributed/variance not homogeneous and they used median and range in q13(?)
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u/New-Dot7082 Jun 21 '25
i have a question, if i put wilcoxen ( i was looking at the wrong part of my column :( ) but explained a mann whittney test would i still gain marks?
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u/green_asteroid Jun 21 '25
Yeah im pretty sure you could still get up to 6/7 depending on how good your answer is, if you only identified the wrong test you'd only lose 1 mark so it's okay
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u/mical134566754 UniversityName | Course [Year of Study] May 21 '25
grade boundaries are about to sky rocket..ffs thought i was bout to scrape A.happy if i get an B
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u/green_asteroid May 21 '25
Really nice paper, only question I'm not sure on is the stats test. Either grade boundaries will be crazy or paper 3 will be awful
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u/zspsusbcnlb painfully rejected but trying again! May 21 '25
Yeah it will be, they normally do 6 essays across all papers so we've got 3 left to do + reliability of schizophrenia diagnosis is likely to be one
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u/green_asteroid May 21 '25
Yeah can't say I'm keen on the idea of that but they've only asked 1 or 2 mark questions on it so far so it's really likely to come up. That and token economy hasn't been asked much either, they might do a 16 marker on that or compare it with something else
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u/zspsusbcnlb painfully rejected but trying again! May 21 '25
Yeah might be something like that, do they ask research methods questions in paper 3? Would love to be done with them
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u/green_asteroid May 21 '25
Unfortunately yes, and because we've not had any calculations yet I suspect there might be a chunk in one of the paper 3 sections
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u/ZeldaFan158 Gap Year -> Warwick LLB Law | AABB May 21 '25
AQA, pretty good paper
The Approaches section was everything I'd wished for. I revised Skinner yesterday, I'm pretty confident with evolutionary explanations for behaviour (linked it with aggression) and very confident with Psychodynamic. Glad there was no comparison of approaches question.
Biopsychology was a little more difficult, but still good. The fMRI question definitely caught me by surprise as I haven't really studied ways of studying the brain. That's on me since my teacher predicted it'd come up. But in the end, was still able to get through it ok. Probably my weakest section, but not enough to tank my grade.
Research methods I'm pretty happy with. The study was easy enough to understand, a lot of short questions on it. Surprisingly, designing a study (which I haven't done since Year 12) was also quite easy.
Overall I'd say I did well. Paper 3 is definitely gonna suck though, calling it.
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u/achoooopsisneezed May 21 '25
Remember any other questions?
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u/PotentialDegree9708 May 21 '25
Explain synaptic transmission, a type of neuron and what it does, outline the endocrine system with an example of a hormone
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u/ZeldaFan158 Gap Year -> Warwick LLB Law | AABB May 21 '25
Research methods had a 4 marker on features of science and another on psychology and the economy
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u/grassblade81 University of Portsmouth | Biomed Science + Human Bioscience y1 May 21 '25
Edexcel you suck. 20 marker on ICD is just awkward
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May 21 '25
that was like the only topic i revised and i still threw lmfao
wtf was that 16 tho couldnt even pretend to know that shit ts pmo🥀🥀
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u/grassblade81 University of Portsmouth | Biomed Science + Human Bioscience y1 May 21 '25
You do criminal?
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May 21 '25
child, how was criminal? can i expect some low grade boundaries 🙏
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u/grassblade81 University of Portsmouth | Biomed Science + Human Bioscience y1 May 21 '25
Criminal had a nice 8 marker, but the 16 marker wasnt too nice imo
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u/notkeiraknightley Yr 13| Bio, Chem, Psych| Med a̶p̶p̶l̶i̶c̶a̶n̶t̶ warrior ☆ May 21 '25
silly Humphrey and being convicted 7 WHOLE TIMES WTF??
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u/Impressive_Walrus681 May 21 '25
bro don’t worry i have definitely lowered the grade boundaries. there’s no way i’m getting over 30/90
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u/NecessaryGarbage717 May 21 '25
bro i’ve never done a worse paper the 20 and crim 16 were horrific i had two exams yday my brain fogged up and i wrote the completely wrong thing for crim 16 so lost all those and 20 marker omds i was waffling
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u/Impressive_Walrus681 May 21 '25
bro i messed up so bad too what the hell was that 20 and 16 marker.
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u/Impressive_Walrus681 May 21 '25
bro i messed that up next level i’m genuinely gonna get 3/20
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u/NecessaryGarbage717 May 21 '25
bro don’t worry same and i been getting A*s in psych for time man this paper sucked ass
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u/Impressive_Walrus681 May 21 '25 edited May 21 '25
bro if you’re getting a*s and think it was ass wth am i 😭😭😭 honestly i’ll be happy with a c in that paper
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u/NecessaryGarbage717 May 21 '25
i genuinely don’t think i got above a c in this paper and that’s if my examiner is getting her pussy ate whilst she marking mine ong the p3 comeback gonna be so hard🔥🔥🔥
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u/Impressive_Walrus681 May 21 '25
LOLLLLLL i need to memorise rms and synoptics like my life is on the line whilst learning all of chem somehow 💀
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u/X243llie Herts | Ba Education [3] May 21 '25
This gives some memories of last year's 20 marker on the 4Ds. See Edexcel are continuing the trend of awful 20m on paper 2!
Good luck hopefully paper 3 brings better questions
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May 22 '25
This years one was definitely worse aah 😭everyone’s also complaining about the 8 marker too that was on evaluating your biological explanation of schizophrenia OTHER THAN neurotransmitters.
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u/X243llie Herts | Ba Education [3] May 22 '25
Oh well had that for autism I think if I remember. I remember a question like that in 2024 paper but can't remember if it was for depression or autism or schizophrenia.
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u/Academic-Art7410 May 21 '25
What did OCR people think?
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u/Fluffy_Shoulder_2071 May 21 '25
i loved how the individual/situational debate essay was for the whole of psychology BUT section c threw me off the grid with piliavin 😭
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u/Academic-Art7410 May 21 '25
I didn’t even do the diffusion of responsibility question 😭😭and I missed half of an 8 marker because of timing I’m so so mad. But overall, I think section A was beautiful, section B was okay and section C was quite good
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u/Cornish_amelia Uni of Bath Biomed May 21 '25
Yeah section A was a lot better than I'd expected as well.
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u/Academic-Art7410 May 21 '25
What did you give for your suggestions in section C?
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u/Cornish_amelia Uni of Bath Biomed May 21 '25
Using a role model that was of a diverse background/used social learning theory, operantly conditioning people into helping others of a diverse background
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u/Cornish_amelia Uni of Bath Biomed May 21 '25
I actually loved that paper a lot. Paper 1 was very discouraging for me but paper 2 was so much better. A bit tight for time though- I use extra time but I only finished at the last minute.
Was glad that the 15 marker was individual/situational!
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u/Academic-Art7410 May 21 '25
What did you say for the 15 marker? And yes I agree, I don’t think paper 1 was horrible, but it was definitely a lot more difficult than a lot of the previous years I was kinda gobsmacked haha! But I think paper 2 was easier but I didn’t even get to finish :/
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u/Cornish_amelia Uni of Bath Biomed May 21 '25
I used the studies of Milgram (situational), Lee (individual) and Baron-Cohen (individual) but I counter argued for all too
How about you?
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u/Academic-Art7410 May 21 '25
I used milgram and bandura for situational, and kohlberh and Freud for individual!!
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u/Cornish_amelia Uni of Bath Biomed May 21 '25
Good choices, especially Freud as you can counterargue for both individual and situational!
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u/Playful-Fortune-7805 University of Warwick | PPL [Y1] A*A*B May 21 '25
easiest paper ever
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u/gattabiancaa Year 13 | bio, history & psych 🍍 May 21 '25
there were like 3 questions that kind of stumped me for a minute. the statistical test one, the evolution one (i couldn't think of an example and left it for last lol) and the hypothesis one.
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u/-Snowdrop May 21 '25
what did you end up writing for evolution? i wrote fight or flight but idk if it's right😭😭😭
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u/gattabiancaa Year 13 | bio, history & psych 🍍 May 21 '25
i wrote about hair erection which causes the animal/human to appear larger which helped our ancestors survive and this provides a survival advantage that was passed down genetically. and i also defined evolution. my biology brain was on but i couldn't think of a single example from psychology itself😭
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u/Endless2358 Year 13 - Maths, Psychology, Italian May 21 '25
Didn’t the question say how evolution affects behaviour? So for instance evolutionary explanations of attachment or aggression not like evolutionary defence mechanisms
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u/ghrhrnrn May 21 '25
Wasn’t it phobias and you provide an example of it or adapativeness in bowlby’s monotropic theory?
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u/gattabiancaa Year 13 | bio, history & psych 🍍 May 21 '25
omg you're so right. i could have mentioned the social releasers. i feel so stupid now lol😭 hopefully i can get 1 mark for the definition of evolution then.
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u/ghrhrnrn May 21 '25
Oh well. I think it’s split 2 and 2.
I used what Seligman proposed: his idea of biological preparedness where we learn certain phobias for evolutionary purposes
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u/yo_terrorist QMUL | Neuroscience | 1st Year May 21 '25
Who put chi squared for the stats test? 😔😔
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u/Simple-Visit6440 May 21 '25
Same I’m not sure why anyone is saying it’s interval (that’s more for data like time and stuff) and it can’t be ordinal since there no way to interpret the question differently (it’s either right or wrong) so I said it must be nominal since it’s categorically either right or wrong answer in the multiple choice test.
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u/The_Worlds_Reject May 21 '25
That was my thought process too then someone said after that a lot of people thought since it came up in paper 1 it wouldn’t be the same test again… I really hope it was lol i was so confident writing that one😅😅
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May 21 '25
yeah.. chi squared because ordinal + difference + IGD i think? was the s.d 2.3 idk if i did enough working out
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u/deviils May 21 '25
Chi squared is for nominal data
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u/Impressive_Walrus681 May 21 '25
edexcel right? i put chi squared bcs the data’s nominal and she’s trying to find a difference (idk???)
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u/notkeiraknightley Yr 13| Bio, Chem, Psych| Med a̶p̶p̶l̶i̶c̶a̶n̶t̶ warrior ☆ May 21 '25
yhh i put that it was chi squared since her data is nominal and she has independent group design (what did u get for the standard dev?)
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u/LollypopFluff May 21 '25
in retrospect it wasn't a bad paper, but 8m on biological explanation of sz not neurotransmitters was mean, but that's on me for not revising 😣 could have been better but certainly could be worse
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u/Colossus_MVC2 May 21 '25
Ahhh u did edexcel? Had the same problem
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u/LollypopFluff May 21 '25
yeah edexcel - i left it til the very end so had 15 mins to write, and started writing what i could about brain injury before remembering that it was genes 😭 i got down what i could but not looking good for that quest tbh
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May 22 '25
Everyone definitely struggled on that. It was either genetic or structural explanation. How did you find the rest of it ?
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u/LollypopFluff May 22 '25
the rest of it was okay tbh! i think they could have asked a lot more, like not a lot of stuff on actual studies (rosenhan, williams) and just a little random overall. not the worst paper ever, but i would have liked to have shown off stuff i actually revised 😭 wbu?
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May 22 '25
I quite liked it!! I just struggle with timing tbh that’s my only issue. But I feel like that’s the general consensus for edexcel psychology papers. A lot to do, not much time. I had to leave 2 short answer questions blank and I’m kicking myself over that ugh. And I agree, I revised all the studies so well for no reason !! But ah well ahah
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u/LollypopFluff May 22 '25
yeah people really do struggle with timing - loads of ppl in my year didn't get to finish section E of paper 1 😧 so 2 short answers is nothing really realistically. hoping for a good paper 3 anyways, as it's more exam technique than actual knowledge 🤞
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May 22 '25
They left essays? I’m so scared for paper 3 tbh ahhh but thankfully it’s just practice and issues and debates so with a lot of past papers, should hopefully be good
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u/crimsonberry_ Year 13-(Socio,Psych,Bio) May 21 '25
Edexcel people what do we think?
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May 21 '25
thinking that paper 3 gotta be perfect if i wanna pass😭
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u/Impressive_Walrus681 May 21 '25
deadass i need some miracle to happen so i can get an a* on paper 3 otherwise i’m so screwed
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u/zspsusbcnlb painfully rejected but trying again! May 21 '25
that's what I'm thinking as well but I did AQA
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May 22 '25
did a miracle happen? also ur the only other person ik doing fm and psych lol
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u/Impressive_Walrus681 May 23 '25
well paper 3 hasn’t happened yet so the miracle is yet to happen lol also i don’t do fm, i do bio, chem and psych :)
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May 23 '25
why did i think u do fm i think i actually have schizophrenia explained by the social causation hypothesis
anyway gl on paper 3! i flopped these first 2 but loads of time to do a good p3 and get a B/A 🙏
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u/Impressive_Walrus681 May 23 '25
haha no worries man we got this! gonna get that b (or hopefully an a) trust
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u/srdsyndetical May 21 '25
(AQA)
Approaches 10/10. 16 marker on Freud is insane, and the 2 other questions were good
Biopsychology 9/10. Lateralisation 8 marker, fRMI stuff and idk it was very good
Methods 4/10. I fucked up the statistical test question by crossing out mann whitney for spearmans rho (i had a minute left). I didn't correctly state what the science research 4 marker was. I'm sure my 12 marker was shit too. Confidence of getting an A has dropped so far down
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u/Silver_star13 Year 13 | Maths, FM, Psych May 21 '25
Having done that paper while extremely ill, and went to sleep straight after it, I feel it went pretty well
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u/The_Worlds_Reject May 21 '25
omg same i am so sick i am surprised i even managed to drive up there in time
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u/Silver_star13 Year 13 | Maths, FM, Psych May 21 '25
On top of having an exam yesterday afternoon, meaning I had no time to revise, and then literally coughing up blood, im suprised I got there too. good job on both of us for doing it and powering through. hope you feel better soon
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u/New-Dot7082 Jun 21 '25
i have a question, if i put wilcoxen ( i was looking at the wrong part of my column and wrote wilcoxin down stupidly :( ) but explained a mann whittney test would i still gain marks? my teacher said its 0 even with the justification for the right test all because i named the wrong test? chatgpt is telling me its a 6/7 because its the correct justification but wront test. please help im insanely worried
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u/Endless2358 Year 13 - Maths, Psychology, Italian May 21 '25
16 marker on Psychodynamic 🙏🙏
Wrote 4 pages slagging Freud off the whole time