Outcome Links: Paper 1 and 2
Paper 1 – SAQ:
The recent examinations at school gave me a broad understanding of where I am at in terms of knowledge and communication through writing. I am very happy with all the results, which were reflective of my focused studying from the weeks leading to the exams. In particular, I believe I did very well in psychology, in both Paper 1 and 2, achieving a 7, the ultimate goal of every IB student. In this post, I would like to go through the exam step by step and how I tackled it in the allocated exam time.
On Paper 1, Section 1- the first question for BLoA asked students to "explain how genetic inheritance may influence one behaviour, with reference to one relevant research study." Without even thinking, I remembered Bouchard, the researcher who compared the concordance rate of Intelligence (IQ) by operating on Mono-zygotic twins. Long story short, I gave a brief overview of the topic by introducing key terms and defining them, and then mentioned a researcher who conducted a study in the particular area. Then, I explained the method and procedures of the study, and lastly, the results, and what the researchers believed the it supported. To conclude, I linked the study back to the question, always keeping in mind that studies never "prove" anything, but only "supports" an idea. In this case- genetics inherited from an individual's parents effect their behaviour as Bouchard's experiment showed that IQ had a 70% concordance rate, meaning 70% of intelligence is attributed to predisposed genetics while only 30% is believed to be nurtured.
Similarly, for the questions on the CLoA and SCLoA, I followed the same format and structure, showing the marker that I understood and remembered my studies well, and how these studies are linked to the question.
As for Section 2, I have no idea why anyone would not choose "Discuss how and why one particular research method is used at the biological level of analysis". It seems incredibly inefficient in my point of view to choose anything else because there must a lot of studies one would know from BLoA, and since most of them are done on animals, the research method that one would have to discuss is the use of animals in laboratory experiments! Anyway, that was not too bad considering the critical thinking only revolved around why animals are important in BLoA research.
Paper 2 was a tough one, as we only covered the area of abnormal psychology briefly. However, having consolidated all the studies into a document and reviewing them all the time, I created a masterpiece full of relevant studies that allowed me to take up two books, demonstrating the breadth of my knowledge.
To conclude, I want to end with the structure of an essay one should always follow for long answers:
Paper 1 – SAQ:
- Genetics Influence on Behaviour (BLoA)
- Reliability of Cognition (CLoA)
- Emic and Etic (SCLoA)
- Research methods in the BLoA (BLoA)
- Biological Factors that influence Abnormal Behaviour
The recent examinations at school gave me a broad understanding of where I am at in terms of knowledge and communication through writing. I am very happy with all the results, which were reflective of my focused studying from the weeks leading to the exams. In particular, I believe I did very well in psychology, in both Paper 1 and 2, achieving a 7, the ultimate goal of every IB student. In this post, I would like to go through the exam step by step and how I tackled it in the allocated exam time.
On Paper 1, Section 1- the first question for BLoA asked students to "explain how genetic inheritance may influence one behaviour, with reference to one relevant research study." Without even thinking, I remembered Bouchard, the researcher who compared the concordance rate of Intelligence (IQ) by operating on Mono-zygotic twins. Long story short, I gave a brief overview of the topic by introducing key terms and defining them, and then mentioned a researcher who conducted a study in the particular area. Then, I explained the method and procedures of the study, and lastly, the results, and what the researchers believed the it supported. To conclude, I linked the study back to the question, always keeping in mind that studies never "prove" anything, but only "supports" an idea. In this case- genetics inherited from an individual's parents effect their behaviour as Bouchard's experiment showed that IQ had a 70% concordance rate, meaning 70% of intelligence is attributed to predisposed genetics while only 30% is believed to be nurtured.
Similarly, for the questions on the CLoA and SCLoA, I followed the same format and structure, showing the marker that I understood and remembered my studies well, and how these studies are linked to the question.
As for Section 2, I have no idea why anyone would not choose "Discuss how and why one particular research method is used at the biological level of analysis". It seems incredibly inefficient in my point of view to choose anything else because there must a lot of studies one would know from BLoA, and since most of them are done on animals, the research method that one would have to discuss is the use of animals in laboratory experiments! Anyway, that was not too bad considering the critical thinking only revolved around why animals are important in BLoA research.
Paper 2 was a tough one, as we only covered the area of abnormal psychology briefly. However, having consolidated all the studies into a document and reviewing them all the time, I created a masterpiece full of relevant studies that allowed me to take up two books, demonstrating the breadth of my knowledge.
To conclude, I want to end with the structure of an essay one should always follow for long answers:
- Introduce topic, define key terms
- Briefly introduce studies and link it to question
- Explain the method, results, and what the researchers believed the study supported
- DCCOWPAD of study
- Repeat 3 and 4 for each study
- Always link the studies back to the question
- Conclude by linking all of them as a whole again
- TA-DA