I am about to take a test in psychology and I need some tips on answering essay type questions?

Check your spelling carefully.

Have a good introduction, body, and conclusion.

Be sure to give supporting data to your answers. For example, cite books or articles you’ve read for class (even if you’re taking this in class & can only give the name of the book or article) and/or refer to things your instructor had said on the subject (hopefully you took good class notes).

Be careful with your spelling, grammar, and punctuation. Even if you have to write quickly, be sure you write legibly.

Be sure to thoroughly answer the question and clearly state your points.

Scribble an outline of salient points; start with the body of text. Add the intro and conclusion at the end. Don’t throw in unnecessary words as filler or fluff; don’t repeat yourself. Read a good essay in your newspaper today for an idea of what is interesting to read.

State your main premise in the introduction, back it up and expand on it in the body of the essay, and summarize it in the conclusion. Proofread by reading the essay backwards to isolate each sentence. If you quote or paraphrase someone, attribute it.

If you can, refer to specific examples used in class. And most certainly do as the others say, introduction, body and conclusion. It always sounded lame to me but it worked.

All points given above are great!

What exactly do you have problems with?

piagets therories

Piaget had no therories as far as I know. And how would his theories relate to a question about writing an essay?

@gailcalled Piaget had a theory about cognitive development.

piagets cognitive theory on middle and early childhood. I have to compare and contrast it

@Allie THANK YOU

@cornbird: Then you’re a step ahead of the game since you already know the question. Start getting organized now.

(And I am familiar with Piaget’s theories.)

@cornbird What do you need to compare/contrast it to? You could mention other theories like the environmental learning theory, biological maturation theory, information processing theory, psychodynamic, psychosocial, etc.

@gailcalled thanks alot. I know you are, sorry if I offended you in any way

@Allie I have to compare and contrast Adolesent cognitive development to previous years.
(middle-late childhood re piagets theory)

@cornbird Well, Piaget’s theory of cognitive development isn’t very continuous. He talks about how there are stages to development and you progress from one stage to the next – sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational. Kids in the later stages have cognitive abilities that younger kids don’t, obviously. He says that you can’t teach a preoperational kid to think like a concrete operational kid.
Each stage has different characteristics. So, for example, preoperational thinkers are static thinkers meaning they think it terms of permanent states. But older kids who aren’t in the preoperational stage anymore can grasp the idea of transformations. Preoperational kids are also egocentric thinkers. They think about things in terms of themselves and if you ask them to consider things from another persons point of view they just don’t understand. (Like looking at an object from your angle as opposed to mine. If you’re a preoperational thinker and I ask you what you think I see, you’d answer with what the object looks like from your angle, not mine. You just can’t understand that it might look different to me. [Look up Piaget’s three mountain task.])
Also, look up information about lack of conservation experiments. Those might give you some good information, but I’d rather not type all those out.
GOOD LUCK!

@Allie does the points of the body being able to adapt to the world and Assimilation of information relevant?

@cornbird Piaget focused a lot on cognitive development. He kind of mixed environmental learning and biological maturation (so a mix between nature and nurture). If you wanted to mention something about the body you could mention how the brain develops or something like that. Like, myelination or synaptic pruning for example. Assimilation of information would have to do with forming schemas. Just don’t forget to mention cognitive development which was what Piaget was all about.

Tell ‘em what you’re gonna tell ‘em. Tell ‘em. Tell ‘em what you told ‘em.

@pdworkin Read my answer above. Yours is more succinct, true, but I said it first.

I don’t bother to read your addlepated musings, @janbb, you know that, darling.

@pdworkin What are you, a clueless male?

see what I mean?

proves my point! genug schoen.

Know what your instructor wants. Otherwise you could have a complete flake who thinks she’s also a grammar instructor, and not only bashes your concepts, citations and format, but also your grammar. (Then her corrections are completely illogical. Wahh.)