MSci done; next stop… PhD!

Tuesday, 14 April 2015

First year exams

With only three teaching weeks remaining, my first year of university is rapidly drawing to a close! It's now the last week of the Easter holidays, and with just over a month till my first Summer exam, revision is paramount. I already had three exams in January, including the Pharmacology 1A end of unit exam. I was delighted with all three marks; I got the highest overall unit score in Pharmacology 1A, over 80% in Physiology, and a 2:1 in the Biochemistry exam, which I thought had gone terribly. The summer exams are as follows:

Monday 18th May ¦ Biochemistry Paper 2 ¦ 35% of unit mark
Friday 22nd May ¦ Pharmacology 1B ¦ 70% of unit 1B mark
Thursday 4th June ¦ Physiology Paper 2 ¦ 40% of unit mark

Well, I'd better get back to revising!

Wednesday, 3 September 2014

My A-level results

I found out my A-level results almost three weeks ago, and they were:

Biology: A

Psychology: B

German: B

Chemistry: A*

I was satisfied with the Biology and German results; I got a B in BIO4, so an A* was out of reach, and although I got an A in the German paper, my speaking was slightly weaker this year, so I'm still pleased with the result.

At first I was disappointed about the B in Psychology, but in hindsight I think there was a trade-off between Psychology and Chemistry, and ultimately, rather than revising to an A standard for both subjects, Psychology lost out while Chemistry gained. Before the start of the exam period I was hoping for an A* in Chemistry, but the horror of the F334 exam really dented my confidence, so this achievement was a brilliant surprise.

Thankfully, my UCAS Track status had been updated by the time I logged on at 8:03 am, so I knew that I'd been accepted by the University of Bristol before I found out my results. This was an immense weight off my mind, and now that I will definitely be studying pharmacology, it makes sense for this blog to undergo the same transformation, from bio-chem-psych-deutsch-student to something like pharmacology-student!

Tuesday, 6 May 2014

Psychology Unit 3 Online Conference

After school today I watched Cara Flanagan and Mike Cardwell's unit 3 revision conference, and picked up many useful revision and exam technique tips. The seminar was split into three half-hour sections: AO1, AO2, and putting them both together. A key point from the AO1 presentation was that less is more; it's important to explain what you know in detail, so it's better to give fewer points, but say more about them. This information should also be structured and organised into four paragraphs of roughly 50 words in length.

The AO2 content should be a maximum of eight 50-word points, no more than two of which should be IDA. Supporting studies suggest that the original study has good ecological validity an is externally reliable. This in turn suggests that the original research or theory is credible and valuable. Naturally, non-supporting research suggests the opposite. Moreover, a gender or culture differences point can become IDA if the link back states that the theory or explanation may not be universal and so is culture- or gender-biased.

In terms of writing a full answer, it is noteworthy that one theory or explanation can yield two thirds of the marks if the question specifically asks for two. This further stresses the "less is more" point, and Cara advised learning one theory in detail, and another in enough detail to write a third of an answer, to prepare for the possibility of a question like this coming up.