Are you stressed when it comes to your AP Psych exam?
Not sure what the first step is to take when it comes to writing those AP FRQs.
Well, in this video we're going to go over a five step strategy to help you write an
effective AP Psychology free response question.
By the end of this video, you'll have the strategy along with three helpful resources
that you can use with your AP Psych prep starting today.
So stay tuned because we're about to go over a lot and be sure to like and subscribe to
this channel because this is just part one of two of our AP Psychology series.
In our next video, we're also going to go over 20 AP Psychology FRQ tips for helping
you tackle the concept application question, research question as well as general test
taking strategies.
One of the things to keep in mind when it comes to AP psychology is that just because
the free response section is only worth 33% it still matters a lot for your overall exam
score.
Sometimes students underestimate the free response section of the AP Psych exam because
it's not like some other classes where the FRQ section is worth as much as 50% but remember
you still have to strategize and prepare for these free responses in order to do well on
your overall AP Psychology exam.
Let's go ahead and jump into step number one of our five step strategy.
The first step when it comes to writing effective AP Psychology free response questions is to
understand the difference between the concept application question and the research question.
These are the two types of questions that the College Board will give you and the intent
of the concept application question is for you to demonstrate that you can take concepts
that you learned in class and apply it to a new scenario.
So the College Board will literally give you a scenario in which you will then be asked
to draw in concepts that you learned in class to the specific scenario.
This is a way for you to demonstrate that you understand and are able to define and
explain different concepts, behaviors, theories, and perspectives.
When it comes to the research question, this is where you're going to be assessed on two
key skills.
The first is data analysis, which is your ability to read and interpret data.
And then the second one is scientific investigation, which is your ability to really challenge
and understand the premise behind a psychological research study.
A few years ago it wasn't guaranteed that students would receive a research question
in the FRQs.
However, the College Board has changed their stance on this in recent years in which students
have seen at least one question be a research question every single year, so be sure that
you prepare for this because it's really important for demonstrating those two skills of analyzing
data and then also understanding and being able to demonstrate understanding of scientific
investigation.
So as you can see here on the screen, what we're showing are two concept application
questions from the 2019 and 2018 FRQ.
In these questions, it's very common for there to be a paragraph in which the scenario is
explained followed by the definitions or key concepts that are being asked of the student
to demonstrate their understanding of.
So in this first question from 2019 we have to demonstrate that we know things like what
altruism is, what Broca's area does self-efficacy and so on and then in the 2018 question we're
being asked to look into things such as context dependent memory as well as selective attention
and then when we shift gears into looking at the research question, we'll look at the
2019 and 2017 example.
What you'll see is that in the 2019 example there is a set of data that the student is
asked to analyze and then interpret results from and then also there is a section in which
the student has to demonstrate understanding of operational definitions as well as different
variables and key concepts when it comes to applying what they learned in class to psychological
research types.
The same goes in 2017 in which in this year's exam what was given was a table of data and
then the student had to interpret that as well as talk about some of the variables that
were being assessed in the respective scenario presented.
Something to notice when it comes to the research question is that one section is always dedicated
to data analysis.
Whereas the other section is very similar to a concept application question.
Just something to keep in mind as you start familiarizing yourself with research questions.
Now that we've gone over step number one, let's go into step two of writing effective
AP Psychology free responses.
Step number two when it comes to writing effective AP Psychology for your responses is to learn
from the mistakes of past students.
The nice thing about the AP Psych exam is that it honestly hasn't changed that much
in the last decade, so there's a lot you can learn by reviewing the Chief Reader Reports
as well as the scoring guidelines that the College Board shares with you.
For example, when it comes to the concept application question, the College Board commonly
shares three pieces of advice.
The first one is to make sure that you are writing in complete sentences.
Spelling and grammar don't necessarily matter, but it is a problem if you are responding
to your concept application question in incomplete sentences or in bullet form.
The second thing that they always remind you of is to make sure that your answer does not
have parts that contradict one another.
You won't lose points for how getting something wrong unless it directly contradicts something
that would have been part of the explanation in you getting it right.
And the final thing is that just defining concepts is not enough to earn the point alone.
Sometimes students know what the concept is that they're being tested on, but they're
not able to apply it to that scenario, so that's really, really important.
When it comes to the research question, students make a few common mistakes.
The first one is having wishy washy answers.
So if you're being asked whether or not the data supports the hypothesis, you cannot just
say something along the lines of, "Well it depends."
You have to say whether or not the data supports or does not support the hypothesis.
Being very clear and explicit in your communication is really important when it comes to the research
question.
Another common mistake of students is answering the wrong question, not actually looking at
the prompt and understanding what the prompt is asking them, and addressing the prompt
directly.
Another mistake students make is that they confuse correlation equaling causation, which
is not true.
The other thing that they do is they have a general sense of what a concept is, but
again, they're not able to apply it to the specific research study being presented to
them.
The last mistake that students make is that they just understand the general methods of
research, but they're not able to compare and contrast different methods or psychological
concepts with one another.
So the difference there is that one of them demonstrates that you can memorize something,
whereas the other one demonstrates that you actually have mastered the content knowledge.
Going through the last few years of free response questions is a great way for you to understand
the commonly made mistakes of students.
Now that we've gone over that, let's jump into step number three.
Before we head into step number three.
Be sure to like and subscribe to this video because in our next video we're going to go
over 20 actionable AP Psychology FRQ test taking strategies that you can start using
as you prepare for your exam.
The third step when it comes to AP Psychology, FRQs is to underline or circle what each question
part is asking you.
Most of the time you'll be asked to identify, explain or describe something.
If you're asked to identify something, this is where you're going to provide one to two
sentences directly answering the question.
Name the concept and then apply it back to the question prompt.
If you're being asked to describe something, this is where you have to characterize something,
so this will typically take anywhere from two to three sentences since after you characterize
it, you will have to again apply it back to the prompt.
Similar directives to the directive of describing can be expressed as being asked to show something
or illustrate something.
When you're asked to explain something, this will typically require you to use at least
three sentences.
One sentence will be to directly respond to the question followed by two to three supporting
and specific facts that support your answer.
You need to go in depth about how the particular concept theory connects back to the prompt.
Teachers often refer to this as "showing the why" and similar directives to explaining
something is if the question asks you to do something like discussing or relating something.
Aside from these directives, you want to build the habit of circling or marking key vocabulary
in the questions just to make sure that you answer these in your response so that you
score full points.
Now let's head into step number four.
The fourth step when it comes to writing effective AP Psychology free responses is to make sure
that you plan out your response before you begin writing.
Just taking a few minutes to plan out your response can add a greater probability that
you will have a thorough and complete response.
Consider if you're going to bring in a case study that you learned in class, how that
case study applies back to the prompt.
Having these sorts of moments to think about what you've already learned in class can provide
stronger examples than trying to use a personal example in explaining or defining a specific
concept.
Another thing to consider is to add a topic sentence in your response.
This can buy you a little bit of time for you to translate the question prompt into
your own words before you begin defining and applying different concepts.
Remember the College Board is using the free response section to assess you on your ability
to apply concepts that you've learned in class to higher order thinking and so this means
that you need to be able to apply concepts, read data, and analyze psychological studies.
In order to do so, this means that you can't just recall the definitions in order to score
points.
You have to be able to actually apply what you've learned towards new scenarios that
are described to you.
The fifth and final step when it comes to writing effective AP Psychology FRQs is to
practice, practice and then practice some more.
We highly recommend that you work your way through at least three past years of exams
and to team up with a friend as a study buddy to grade each other's work.
It can be super helpful to see how another student would have answered that same question
as you and for the both of you to work through the scoring guidelines to see specifically
whether each other's responses would have scored four points.
Understanding and mastering the rubric in the application of not only your own work
but another person's work can help you solidify your understanding of what the AP graders
are going to be looking for.
It takes just a few days to get through these, but it's a really helpful way to make a big
impact on your AP Psych prep.
Three additional resources when it comes to preparing for AP psychology as we promised
at the beginning of this video.
The first one is the College Board's AP central.
This is where you're going to find all the past released free response questions as well
as scoring guidelines, sample responses, and Chief Reader Reports.
The sample responses are really great because the College Board gives you a demonstration
typically of an exceptional student, an okay student, and then a poor student response.
So this will be a great way for you to really understand the concept of what it means to
not only define a concept but apply it to a scenario.
The second resource is Albert's free AP Psychology review guide.
You can find this on our blog and it's a self-paced study guide that you can use with either Albert
or any other review resource as to prepare for your exam.
And the last resource is Albert's AP Psychology course which provides hundreds of multiple
choice questions that are standards aligned to the AP exam with detailed explanations
as well as original FRQ and full-length practice exams for you to simulate the real thing.
So you can use that to supplement your AP Central prep efforts as well as anything else
that your teachers may give you.
Now I want to hear from you.
If you have any questions about AP Psychology, leave a comment below or tell me what was
most helpful in this video and be sure to like and subscribe to our channel because
in our next video, like I mentioned, we're going to go over those 20 FRQ tips for AP
Psych to tackling that concept application question as well as that research question
to help you score four or five.
That's it for this time though, I'll see you guys next time.