VCE Psychology Question Thread

Hey guys! For this VCAA question (3b, 2021 exam), I thought the IV would be gender but the answer guide said whether 3 or more or no caffeinated drinks had been consumed. Could someone help me understand where I went wrong please?

Effect of caffeine on Parkinson’s disease
by F Marrow
Drinking caffeinated drinks has been associated with reduced tremors in people with Parkinson’s
disease. A recent study of 284 newly diagnosed Parkinson’s disease patients has gone one step further

to explore if the gender of a person changes the effects of caffeine on the severity of tremors

The researchers interviewed the patients to understand their motor and non-motor symptoms and their
caffeine consumption history.
Of the patients, 204 were classified as caffeine drinkers (three or more cups per day, including coffee,
tea and energy drinks) and 80 were classified as non-caffeine drinkers (0 cups per day).
Results showed that, compared to non-caffeine drinkers, caffeine drinkers:
•had early onset of symptoms
• were younger
• had fewer motor and non-motor symptoms
• had lower resting tremor scores.
Interestingly, the relationship between caffeine consumption and tremor severity was only significant
in males.

can someone explain why the answer is a for q28 on the 2023 vcaa exam? thanks!

Researchers conducted an experiment to investigate the influence of the chemical theophylline on the circadian
rhythm of rats in dark conditions. Theophylline is found naturally in brewed tea and acts to stimulate central
nervous system activity. The study was conducted on 10 rats, which were administered a single theophylline dose
(0.5 mg/kg) one hour before they fell asleep, and were then monitored for two days using an electroencephalograph
(EEG) with no access to natural or artificial light. Three major states of consciousness were analysed during the
48 hours of observation: waking, NREM sleep and REM sleep.
Question 28
The use of a control group in this study would require a group of rats that
A. receives 0.5 mg/kg of a salt solution.
B. is exposed to full light conditions for one of the two days.
C. is sleep-deprived for the two days following administration of theophylline.
D. is a different species of rats, genetically modified to not digest theophylline.

girlmeetsvce i think because in the question stem it's comparing non-caffeine drinkers with caffeine drinkers. also in the stem it's given the number of caffeine or non-caffeine drinkers rather than the number of males and females that participated in the experiment. it doesn't give enough detail about the gender aspect and because it's written more as a side note you could say gender is an extraneous variable.

marine should be option A as it serves as a control group (baseline to compare results to). the salt will have no impact, similar to what a placebo would do. it wouldn’t be option B as having some sort of light isn’t providing a baseline as the variable of light is still being manipulated. option C and D would be incorrect as they are alterations to the experiment thus various experimental groups.

girlmeetsvce i replied to your email but ill provide my answer here too. in essence, in the context of this experiment, they're testing the effect of caffeine through the correlation of gender. gender isn’t being investigated explicitly, rather the effects of caffeine per gender. i would put this into a context of a between subject design where the same participants are used in both groups— you can change caffeine consumption but you cannot change gender (in an experimental context).

girlmeetsvce oh i hated this question so much, hoping the psych exam isn’t like the bio exam (i don’t do bio i have heard it was crazy difficult). here was my approach

(1 mark) defining alzheimers (keyword: neurodegenerative disease)
(1 mark) symptom of alzheimers is a difficulty remembering autobiographic memories, which comprise of episodic and semantic memories
(2 marks) episodic and semantic memories are encoded by the hippocampus, and in a patient diagnosed with alzheimers, brain imaging will show a shrinkage in the hippocampus, leading to the inability to remember any new episodic or semantic memories as they cannot be properly encoded through the hippocampus
(1 mark) this highlights how autobiographical memories rely on the hippocampus for encoding

thank youu omg yea I read the reddits about the bio exam and am praying for psych to not be as hard!!

I need to do some hard core revision what are anyone's favourite websites/channels/resources any and all recommendations would be greatly appreciated for pretty much any area of the syllabus

jess edrolo is great, if u don't have it they're on atar.rocks
also a podcast on spotify which is pretty good https://open.spotify.com/show/5zSTHptunIcTxB61drBwwH?si=jajV3JMtQ6yRHO3BcG7JPA

hey guys I'm struggling with VCAA research methods/key science skills questions, do you have any recommendations for how to improve before tomorrow?

hi guys, i am not in year 12, im in year 8 rather, but my sister is in year 12 doing psychology, and she did her exam today. She said it was quite a hard test in the fact that the questions were extremely lengthy to read, although the 10 mark questions was extremely easy. Do you guys share the same thoughts?

oh the exam was SHIT. like it was wordy and confusing and none of it made sense. i walked in optimistic and walked out wanting to use my own notes to improve my mental well-being. it was so disheartening bc I've done well all year and now it poses a risk of being my 10% subject

but maybe that means that it will be easier to get a higher score if the average is lower? Or is that just not how it works

FH real shit ive been top of the class but shit was crazy today. I think genuinely it will be my bottom 2

MMHS technically you're right, but we'll see... I think I did too shit for it to actually benefit me lol