The modules, one by one
Each area below lists the concepts named in the course document, what the TASC exam asks of them, and the mistake that most often costs marks.
- Scientific inquiry, operational variables and psychological perspectives
- Sampling, research methods and statistical interpretation
- Research ethics and the 2026 Investigative Project
- Gender concepts and evaluation of biological evidence
- Gender development and environmental theories
- Intelligence theories, measurement and interacting influences
- Personality: psychodynamic and humanist explanations
- Personality: learning, social cognition, traits and measurement
- Visual perception: sensory processes, organisation and depth
- Visual perception: theories, perceptual set and illusions
- Consciousness, attention and measurement
- Sleep stages, research methods and sleep loss
- Classical conditioning and evaluation of learning evidence
- Operant conditioning, consequences and schedules
- Observational and cognitive learning
- Encoding and the multi-store and working-memory models
- Long-term memory, processing and reconstruction
- Psychological explanations of forgetting
- Physiological forgetting, ageing and memory evidence
- Memory improvement and integrated evidence evaluation
Area 1 of 20
Scientific inquiry, operational variables and psychological perspectives
Define constructs through appropriate measurements, distinguish experiment from observation and target specific biases. Use psychological perspectives as mechanisms rather than labels. An examination argument must connect theory, empirical evidence and the actual stimuli.
What the course document lists under this area · 6 points
- Distinguish psychological constructs from observations
- Compare biological, behavioural, cognitive and socio-cultural perspectives
- Move from a research question to an operational hypothesis
- Distinguish experimental manipulation from observational association
- Use controls and blinding for specific sources of bias
- Build a stimulus-based argument instead of repeating a theory
What the exam asks
Internal Criterion 5: formulate and operationalise psychological investigations. Research reasoning also supports external Criterion 7 evidence use in the 2026 written examination; the note does not create a separate written Research and Inquiry section.
Where marks go missing
Treating a numerical score as a complete direct view of a psychological construct.
Area 2 of 20
Sampling, research methods and statistical interpretation
Match sampling and measurement to the question. Keep counts, percentages and means distinct, and interpret correlation through design limits. Evaluate consistency, causal support and generalisation as related but separate issues.
What the course document lists under this area · 6 points
- Choose a sampling method and define the target population
- Compare experiments, case studies, observations and self-report
- Distinguish qualitative and quantitative evidence
- Calculate means and percentages with the right denominator
- Interpret correlation without converting it into causation
- Evaluate reliability, validity and generalisation separately
What the exam asks
Internal Criterion 5: select sampling, methods and valid measurements. External Criterion 7: interpret and evaluate evidence supporting a psychological argument, including appropriate use of descriptive data.
Where marks go missing
Calling randomly allocated volunteers a random population sample.
Area 3 of 20
Research ethics and the 2026 Investigative Project
The 2026 project concerns Psychobiological Processes and requires approved primary research supported by secondary sources. Apply consent and privacy to the actual procedure, then present a traceable report within the current count, format and anonymity requirements.
What the course document lists under this area · 6 points
- Choose the correct 2026 project topic before planning
- Make consent, withdrawal and privacy meaningful
- Evaluate deception and harm in the specific design
- Build the report around the investigation actually conducted
- Apply the stated count and presentation rules accurately
- Evaluate findings with a specific limitation and improvement
What the exam asks
2026 external Investigative Project Criteria 2,6,8: undertake the separate Psychobiological Processes project with ethical methods and specified report/communication requirements. Planning is also internal Criterion 5; the project is not a numeric examination section.
Where marks go missing
Using the 2025 topic rotation for a 2026 project.
Area 4 of 20
Gender concepts and evaluation of biological evidence
Biological evidence informs gender-development explanations but does not determine every individual outcome. Evaluate chromosomes, hormones and brain studies through their actual measures and designs. Keep identity, roles and biological characteristics distinct, and use an interactionist argument where evidence supports it.
What the course document lists under this area · 6 points
- Distinguish sex characteristics, identity, roles and stereotypes
- Evaluate chromosome evidence without treating it as destiny
- Consider prenatal-hormone evidence and its confounders
- Use androgen-insensitivity evidence to test simple models
- Interpret the Dominican-kindred research in context
- Evaluate brain evidence and avoid average-to-individual errors
What the exam asks
2026 written SectionC, Gender option, Criteria 1 and 7: analyse biological explanations of gender-related differences and evaluate what chromosome, hormone and brain evidence permits.
Where marks go missing
Using sex characteristics, identity and role preferences as interchangeable measures.
Area 5 of 20
Gender development and environmental theories
Environmental theories explain different processes: modelling, social roles, developing concepts and schema-guided interpretation. Evaluate their methods and predictions, then build an interactionist argument through explicit links rather than deterministic claims.
What the course document lists under this area · 6 points
- Explain social learning through models and consequences
- Compare social-role and evolutionary explanations
- Explain Kohlberg through developing gender concepts
- Explain Bem through gender schemas and information processing
- Use cultural comparison without flattening whole communities
- Construct an interactionist evaluation across the theories
What the exam asks
2026 written SectionC, Gender option, Criteria 1 and 7: compare environmental/cognitive theories, social learning, schemas and interactionist evidence without treating group patterns as individual destiny.
Where marks go missing
Assuming children copy every observed action immediately.
Area 6 of 20
Intelligence theories, measurement and interacting influences
Compare theories through their definitions and measures. Twin, adoption, socioeconomic and cohort evidence have different strengths and assumptions. Genetic influence can coexist with environmental change, and test results remain bounded interpretations of measured performance.
What the course document lists under this area · 8 points
- Define intelligence and distinguish a construct from a score
- Explain Spearman through common and specific factors
- Compare Gardner and Sternberg without invoking learning-style labels
- Evaluate Stanford-Binet and Wechsler testing
- Interpret twin and adoption evidence with its assumptions
- Explain environmental opportunity and the Flynn effect
- Use Turkheimer and reaction-range ideas interactionistically
- Construct an ethical evidence-based intelligence argument
What the exam asks
2026 written SectionC, Intelligence option, Criteria 1 and 7: compare intelligence theories and measurement, and evaluate genetic, environmental and interactionist evidence.
Where marks go missing
Treating a test score as personal worth or a fixed ceiling.
Area 7 of 20
Personality: psychodynamic and humanist explanations
Explain psychodynamic and humanist constructs as theories with distinct mechanisms. Compare their evidence and testability without confusing historical influence with proof. Apply concepts cautiously to a vignette rather than assigning a diagnosis or fixed character label.
What the course document lists under this area · 6 points
- Define personality and identify the explanatory question
- Explain Freud through conflict and the structural model
- Evaluate developmental claims without treating them as established facts
- Distinguish Jung from Freud
- Explain Rogers through self-concept and congruence
- Explain Maslow and compare humanist evidence
What the exam asks
2026 written SectionC, Personality option, Criteria 1 and 7: analyse psychodynamic and humanist explanations and evaluate their evidential/testability limits.
Where marks go missing
Treating id, ego and superego as separate brain organs.
Area 8 of 20
Personality: learning, social cognition, traits and measurement
Learning and social-cognitive accounts explain processes, while trait models organise patterns. Evaluate instruments through scoring, validity and intended use. Recognise stability and situational variation without turning a dimension into a diagnosis or destiny.
What the course document lists under this area · 8 points
- Explain learned patterns through Skinner
- Use Bandura through reciprocal influences and self-efficacy
- Compare Mischel and Rotter through situations and expectancies
- Explain Allport and Cattell as trait approaches
- Compare Eysenck with the Five Factor Model
- Evaluate projective methods and the MBTI
- Interpret heritability without removing environmental influence
- Build a comparative Personality essay
What the exam asks
2026 written SectionC, Personality option, Criteria 1 and 7: compare learning, social-cognitive and trait explanations and evaluate personality measures.
Where marks go missing
Calling a trait label a complete developmental explanation.
Area 9 of 20
Visual perception: sensory processes, organisation and depth
Trace detection into selection, organisation and interpretation. Explain grouping, constancies and depth cues through the actual display. A project needs a controlled cue, defined judgment and bounded conclusion, with sensory access and ethics considered in its design.
What the course document lists under this area · 6 points
- Separate sensation from perceptual interpretation
- Explain attention, thresholds and sensory adaptation
- Apply Gestalt grouping principles to a display
- Explain constancies despite changing retinal information
- Distinguish binocular and monocular depth information
- Design and evaluate a perceptual-organisation investigation
What the exam asks
2026 external Investigative Project topic scope, Criterion 2 with Criteria 6 and 8: analyse visual-perception sensory processes, organisation and depth; also internally assessed. Psychobiological Processes is not a 2026 written section.
Where marks go missing
Treating perception as a literal unchanged retinal photograph.
Area 10 of 20
Visual perception: theories, perceptual set and illusions
Compare Gregory, Gibson and Neisser through information, interpretation and active exploration. Test perceptual-set and illusion claims with controlled displays and defined judgments. Keep physical properties, reported perception and theoretical inference separate.
What the course document lists under this area · 6 points
- Contrast bottom-up and top-down contributions
- Explain Gregory through hypothesis testing
- Explain Gibson through ecological information
- Explain Neisser through a perceptual cycle
- Apply perceptual set through context, culture and experience
- Use illusions as evidence with clear physical measurements
What the exam asks
2026 external Investigative Project topic scope, Criterion 2 with Criteria 6 and 8: analyse perceptual theories, set and illusions using approved methods/evidence; also internally assessed.
Where marks go missing
Treating top-down and bottom-up as entirely disconnected systems.
Area 11 of 20
Consciousness, attention and measurement
Compare dimensions of awareness, distinguish attention and processing demands, and combine physiological, behavioural and self-report evidence within the 2026 project rules.
What the course document lists under this area · 6 points
- Describe consciousness using several dimensions
- Distinguish selective attention from divided attention
- Explain controlled and automatic processing through practice
- Compare daydreaming and altered experience carefully
- Interpret physiological measures without claiming mind reading
- Evaluate self-report, observation and converging evidence
What the exam asks
2026 external Investigative Project topic scope, Criterion 2 with Criteria 6 and 8: analyse consciousness, attention and physiological/behavioural/self-report measures; also internally assessed.
Where marks go missing
Treating consciousness as a single all-or-none property.
Area 12 of 20
Sleep stages, research methods and sleep loss
Explain stages and measures, distinguish sleep timing from sleep pressure, evaluate deprivation and dream theories, and apply an ethical design to the 2026 psychobiological project.
What the course document lists under this area · 8 points
- Describe sleep architecture and changing stages
- Compare REM and NREM using several measurements
- Explain sleep pressure, circadian timing and adolescent sleep
- Evaluate deprivation, recovery and rebound
- Compare restoration and adaptive explanations of sleep
- Distinguish wish fulfilment and activation-synthesis
- Compare problem-solving and reverse-learning theories
- Design and interpret sleep research ethically
What the exam asks
2026 external Investigative Project topic scope, Criterion 2 with Criteria 6 and 8: analyse sleep, research measures and theories through an ethically approved investigation. Deliberate deprivation is not a recommended student design; also internally assessed.
Where marks go missing
Saying the brain switches off during sleep.
Area 13 of 20
Classical conditioning and evaluation of learning evidence
Map the stimulus–response sequence, explain changes in the association, and evaluate historical evidence and applications with clear methodological and ethical limits.
What the course document lists under this area · 6 points
- Distinguish learning from maturation and unlearned behaviour
- Map Pavlovian conditioning before, during and after acquisition
- Explain extinction, recovery, generalisation and discrimination
- Evaluate Watson and Rayner without overstating the evidence
- Apply conditioning to fear and one-trial learning
- Distinguish exposure applications and evaluate their limits
What the exam asks
2026 written SectionA, Conditioning option, Criteria 3 and 7: explain classical conditioning, learning processes and applications and evaluate relevant evidence.
Where marks go missing
Calling a stimulus the response or reversing UCS and UCR.
Area 14 of 20
Operant conditioning, consequences and schedules
Analyse antecedents, responses and consequences, classify processes by their effect on behaviour, and use schedules and combined learning accounts without ignoring evidence or ethics.
What the course document lists under this area · 7 points
- Explain the antecedent–behaviour–consequence sequence
- Classify reinforcement using its effect and the change in stimuli
- Distinguish punishment and response cost from negative reinforcement
- Compare ratio and interval schedules
- Explain shaping, tokens and stimulus control
- Compare classical and operant learning precisely
- Integrate learned helplessness and two-factor fear accounts
What the exam asks
2026 written SectionA, Conditioning option, Criteria 3 and 7: analyse operant contingencies, schedules and combined learning accounts and compare them with classical conditioning.
Where marks go missing
Using positive and negative to mean good and bad.
Area 15 of 20
Observational and cognitive learning
Trace modelling processes, distinguish learning from performance, evaluate primary studies and use cognitive representations, insight and transfer in a stimulus-based 2026 essay.
What the course document lists under this area · 6 points
- Explain observational learning as acquisition through models
- Trace attention, retention, reproduction and motivation in an example
- Evaluate the Bobo-doll evidence with the correct boundaries
- Explain latent learning and cognitive maps
- Analyse insight, learning sets and transfer
- Build the 2026 observational and cognitive learning argument
What the exam asks
2026 written SectionA, Observational/Cognitive Learning option, Criteria 3 and 7: analyse modelling processes, latent learning, maps, insight and transfer with accurately bounded research evidence.
Where marks go missing
Assuming direct reinforcement is required for every observed behaviour to be learned.
Area 16 of 20
Encoding and the multi-store and working-memory models
Distinguish memory processes, compare linked storage and active working-memory models, and test interpretations through task conditions and serial-position evidence.
What the course document lists under this area · 6 points
- Separate encoding, storage and retrieval
- Explain the multi-store model as a linked system
- Compare sensory, short-term and long-term properties
- Explain the central executive and specialised subsystems
- Place the episodic buffer in the revised model
- Use serial-position and task evidence to evaluate models
What the exam asks
2026 written SectionB, Memory option, Criteria 4 and 7: analyse encoding/storage/retrieval, multi-store and revised working-memory models and relevant task evidence.
Where marks go missing
Assuming every failed response proves storage loss.
Area 17 of 20
Long-term memory, processing and reconstruction
Explain distinct long-term functions, organised meaning and encoding quality, then evaluate reconstructive recall using accurately bounded historical evidence.
What the course document lists under this area · 6 points
- Distinguish declarative and procedural memory
- Explain semantic networks and their limits
- Compare maintenance and elaborative rehearsal
- Evaluate levels of processing through primary evidence
- Explain reconstruction, schemas and Bartlett
- Use Loftus and Palmer to distinguish wording effects from broad claims
What the exam asks
2026 written SectionB, Memory option, Criteria 4 and 7: analyse long-term organisation, processing and reconstructive remembering, including misleading-question evidence.
Where marks go missing
Assuming all long-term memories are episodic.
Area 18 of 20
Psychological explanations of forgetting
Distinguish acquisition and access failures, calculate savings correctly, and compare competing theories through evidence that can separate their predictions.
What the course document lists under this area · 6 points
- Interpret the forgetting curve and savings method
- Distinguish failure to encode and pseudo-forgetting
- Explain retrieval failure and the tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon
- Compare context-dependent and state-dependent retrieval
- Differentiate proactive and retroactive interference
- Evaluate decay, suppression and repression
What the exam asks
2026 written SectionB, Forgetting option, Criteria 4 and 7: compare psychological forgetting explanations, savings, cue-dependent retrieval and interference with methodological limits.
Where marks go missing
Treating the forgetting curve as a universal personal timetable.
Area 19 of 20
Physiological forgetting, ageing and memory evidence
Link biological explanations to specific memory functions, distinguish amnesia patterns and conditions, and evaluate clinical and lifespan evidence without individual stereotypes.
What the course document lists under this area · 6 points
- Distinguish organic explanations from task-level descriptions
- Explain consolidation without locating all memory in one place
- Differentiate anterograde and retrograde amnesia
- Explain ageing as a variable pattern across functions
- Distinguish Alzheimer’s disease and Korsakoff’s syndrome
- Evaluate case evidence and dissociations
What the exam asks
2026 written SectionB, Forgetting option, Criteria 4 and 7: analyse physiological/organic explanations, amnesia, lifespan patterns and clinical evidence without diagnosis from classroom scores.
Where marks go missing
Treating a low classroom memory score as a diagnosis.
Area 20 of 20
Memory improvement and integrated evidence evaluation
Choose strategies by their encoding and retrieval mechanisms, check them with appropriate outcomes, and integrate accurate evidence into the 2026 Memory or Forgetting essay.
What the course document lists under this area · 6 points
- Improve encoding through attention and meaningful organisation
- Use elaboration and retrieval practice with feedback
- Explain acronyms, acrostics and narrative chaining
- Compare method of loci and peg-word techniques
- Support consolidation and evaluate spacing claims
- Integrate models, measures and the 2026 examination response
What the exam asks
2026 written SectionB, Memory or Forgetting as relevant to the question, Criteria 4 and 7: explain and evaluate recall-improvement techniques, encoding/retrieval mechanisms and their evidential limits.
Where marks go missing
Equating familiarity with independent retrieval.