SACE 2023 exams: How to do your best in psychology
A psychology student who got an ATAR of 96.75 gives her tips on how to tackle the SACE psychology exam.
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Stella Kemp is a final year psychology student at the University of Adelaide. A tutor with Adelaide leading tutoring institute Tutors SA, she graduated in 2020 with an ATAR of 96.75.
SACE 2023: Your ultimate guide to SACE exams
The psychology exam is 130 minutes long and will be held on Tuesday, November 14.
It is an e-exam (online) composed of a short answer section worth 70 marks and an extended response section of two questions worth 30 marks (15 each).
Individual short answer questions are worth anything from two to eight marks.
On the day before the exam, you should attempt a practice exam to solidify your knowledge and note anything you may need to revise.
Your teacher may have provided you with the SASTA guide, otherwise there are practice questions available on the SACE website.
Try not to refer to your notes, keep to the 130-minute time, and work in a clean, quiet space with minimal distractions.
These will help you to familiarise yourself with the short and long answer question types.
As a psychology student, I am sure you are familiar with the importance of sleep and the drastic consequences of not getting enough!
To ensure you perform at your best, be sure to get plenty of rest the night before your exam, as well as eating a healthy breakfast the morning of.
If you feel anxious or stressed leading up to your exam, it is a perfect time to put into practice some of the coping strategies that you have learnt in the course this year – breathing techniques, power poses, positive affirmations, and/or a short meditation can make a world of difference!
You will need to bring your fully charged laptop, with the SACE exam browser installed and plug-in headphones in case the exam has multimedia material.
When answering questions, read over them carefully (more than once), highlight key terms, and start with a question you feel the most confident about.
It may be helpful for you to note the mark allocation of each question as an indication of how much you should write and the lead-in verb to know how you should answer the question. You do not need to re-word the question or the scenario as it wastes time and will not lead to extra marks.
Instead, you should focus on what the question is asking you.
If you feel stressed during the exam and your mind goes blank on a question, flag the question, and come back to it later.
You should not submit your exam as soon as you have completed it.
Carefully re-read the questions and your answers, considering your interpretation, level of detail for the mark allocation, context of the scenario, and use of psychological terminology.
It is easy to make mistakes on the extended response if you do not know how to answer it. You should allow for about 15 minutes to write about 200 words per question, which should NOT include an introduction or conclusion as it is not an essay.
You will be assessed on your content (what you write) and communication (how you write). To get content marks, you need to cover each dot point with as much detail as you can.
For communication you need to write clearly, your points should be relevant to each question, your information should be organised into complete sentences and paragraphs, and you should use psychological terms.
Good luck everyone!
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