QCE Psychology exam 2026Exams: Tue 10 Nov to Wed 11 Nov · QCAA timetable
Your QCE Psychology exam:
When and how long
- Psychology · Paper 1Afternoon session1 h 30 min plus 5 min perusal or planning time
- Psychology · Paper 2Morning session1 h 30 min plus 5 min perusal or planning time
QCAA's timetable sets the day and the morning (AM) or afternoon (PM) session, not a start time: your school tells you when to arrive. Durations are working time plus perusal or planning time.
Source: QCAA external assessment timetable 2026 (QCAA), checked Wednesday 23 September 2026. Where a start time, reading time or duration isn't shown, the timetable doesn't publish it: check your personal timetable and the front of your paper.
What the exam covers
We don't have past-paper frequency data for this exam, so here is the course, module by module. Make sure every module is covered.
Night-before and exam-morning checklists
The night before
- QCAA's timetable fixes the day and the AM or PM session only: confirm the start time and venue with your school.[2]
- Check your calculator is on QCAA's approved list for the subject.[1]
- Pack a clear plastic container or zip-lock bag: black or blue pens, pencils, eraser, sharpener, a highlighter.[1]
- An ordinary watch only if you want one (no smart watch or fitness tracker); it goes on the desk.[1]
- Pack a water bottle (it stays on the floor).[1]
Exam morning
- Arrive at least 30 minutes before the start.[1]
- Switch your phone off and leave it in your bag outside the room.[1]
- More than 40 minutes late needs permission, and you lose perusal and planning time.[1]
- During perusal and planning time, don't write in the response book or touch your calculator.[1]
- You can't leave in the first 40 minutes or the last 10 minutes.[1]
Exam-week survival kit: The last 7 days · The night before and exam morning · What to bring, and what's banned · How to use reading time · If you're sick or something goes wrong · Handling exam-week stress.
Last-week revision
QCE Psychology cram sheet
Key formulas, definitions and facts copied from our Psychology syllabus pages. One page when printed.
Unit 1: Individual development
Synaptic pruning follows the rule "use it or lose it": synapses that are activated frequently are strengthened and retained, while those that are rarely used are eliminated. This is why the brain becomes more efficient with development and why early experience has such a lasting effect on neural architecture.
Unit 2: Individual behaviour
On modern IQ tests the mean is set to 100 and the standard deviation to 15. Because scores are normally distributed, roughly 68 percent of the population falls within one standard deviation (85 to 115) and about 95 percent within two (70 to 130).
In Rosenhan's study, the pseudopatients were hospitalised for an average of around 19 days and all but one were discharged with a diagnosis of schizophrenia in remission, never recognised as sane by staff. This showed how a diagnostic label shapes how all later behaviour is interpreted.
Unit 3: Individual thinking
In Simons and Chabris's gorilla study, roughly half of observers failed to notice the gorilla when focused on counting passes. The finding shows that without attention, salient visual information simply does not reach conscious perception, even though it lands clearly on the retina.
Patient HM could learn and improve at a mirror-drawing task across days yet had no memory of ever having done it before. This dissociation is powerful evidence that procedural memory (cerebellum and basal ganglia) is separate from explicit memory (hippocampus).
In Bandura's Bobo doll study, children imitated specific aggressive acts they had only watched, including novel behaviours never modelled before for them to copy directly. This demonstrated that learning can occur purely through observation and mental representation, not just direct reinforcement.
Unit 4: The influence of others
In Milgram's baseline study, 65 percent of participants administered the full 450-volt shock, and 100 percent continued to at least 300 volts. The results stunned psychiatrists who had predicted that fewer than 1 percent would go all the way, showing the power of situation over disposition.
In Darley and Latane's studies, a participant who believed they were the only witness to an emergency helped about 85 percent of the time, but this dropped to around 31 percent when they believed four others were also present. The drop is explained by diffusion of responsibility across the group.
In Festinger and Carlsmith's study, participants paid only 1 dollar to lie later reported genuinely enjoying the dull task more than those paid 20 dollars. The smaller payment gave too little external justification, so participants reduced dissonance by changing their attitude instead.