Explore Psychology as a distinct ATAR course. Unit 1 – Biological and lifespan psychology; Unit 2 – Attitudes, stereotypes and social influence
Confirm your cohort: The source register has separate Year 11 and Year 12 editions. Confirm the syllabus for the actual year you take each course; unavailable revised detail is marked UNVERIFIED. UNVERIFIED Year 12 learning detail for the advertised edition. School course availability and eligibility are separate.
What will I learn?
Unit 1 – Biological and lifespan psychology
Year 11 courseUnit 2 – Attitudes, stereotypes and social influence
Year 11 courseHow will I be assessed?
Published course / existing guide: Year 11 published assessment types: Science inquiry; Response; Examination. Read the table in context for component weights; your school sets individual tasks and dates.
Needs verification: UNVERIFIED Year 12 assessment mix in this profile. Open the advertised syllabus and your school's outline.
Progression and companion subjects
No complete companion or exclusion review is attached to this profile. Check the official course-entry conditions, language eligibility and your school’s sequence before enrolling. Links between resource hubs show related learning; they do not establish a compulsory prerequisite.
Will I find it hard?
Difficulty depends on your experience, interests, teaching and assessment. These are our reflection prompts, not an official difficulty rating.
- Look at how much data, calculation and graph interpretation appear in the sample for this particular science.
- Can you explain the ideas in your own words as well as recall the terminology?
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Does it scale up or down?
Psychology, 2025. TISC’s mean scaled scores summarise all students with a scaled score in the published course. The mean describes a cohort and gives no individual raw-to-scaled conversion. A scaled mean alone cannot establish whether this subject scaled up or down. Historical cohort data cannot predict your result or a future scaling direction.
| Mean scaled score | Students |
|---|---|
| 56.8 | 1,833 |
Scaling is not a measure of difficulty or a guaranteed bonus. Prioritise content you can engage with and required subjects for courses you are considering.
Try a little of the subject
Biological psychology
The nervous system has two structural divisions. The central nervous system (CNS) is the brain and the spinal cord. It receives information, integrates it and initiates responses. The peripheral nervous system (PNS) is every part of the nervous system outside the brain and spinal cord; its nerves carry information between the CNS and the rest of the body. The PNS has two divisions. The somatic nervous system has a sensory role, carrying information from receptors in the skin, muscles and joints to the CNS, and a motor role, carrying messages from the CNS to skeletal muscles so that voluntary movement can occur. The autonomic nervous system regulates internal organs and glands, largely without conscious control. The autonomic nervous system has two branches that usually work in opposition. The sympathetic branch prepares the body for action when a threat or stressor is perceived: heart rate and breathing rate rise, pupils dilate, stored glucose is released for energy and digestion slows. The parasympathetic branch maintains the body in its resting state and returns it to that state once the threat has passed: heart rate falls, digestion resumes and energy is conserved. Many organs, such as the heart, receive input from both branches, and the balance between them determines the body's overall state. The basic unit of the nervous system is the neuron . Dendrites are branched fibres that receive messages from other neurons. The soma (cell body) contains the nucleus and combines the incoming signals. The axon is a long fibre that carries the impulse away from the soma. Many axons are wrapped in a fatty myelin sheath , which insulates the axon and speeds up transmission. At the end of the axon, the axon terminals store and release neurotransmitter. Sensory neurons carry infor
Original practice question: While waiting to sit an exam, a student's heart rate and breathing rate increase and her digestion slows. Which division of the nervous system is mainly responsible?
Show the worked answer
C
This is ATARMAxxing’s original sample learning material. It is not an official assessment task or a prediction of your school’s workload.
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Open the Psychology (ATAR) subject hub and free preview
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Sources, versions and verification dates
Profile source metadata last checked: 2026-11-13. A source check is not an endorsement by the authority or confirmation that a future course version is unchanged.
- SCSA Psychology course page (senior secondary syllabus and support materials) — SCSA; 2026-11-11. Published version Official course page; the 2026-11-08 retrieval record lists it as the source of the ATAR Year 11 syllabus for teaching from 2026. A live re-check on 2026-11-11 was blocked by a Cloudflare challenge (HTTP 403), so the page's current links were not re-read.. Confirm applicability to your cohort.
- Psychology ATAR Year 11 Syllabus for teaching from 2026 — SCSA; 2026-11-11. Published version ATAR Year 11 syllabus for teaching from 2026; effective from 1 January 2026; DOCX retrieved on 2026-11-08 through Andrew's Chrome browser from the SCSA URL (see downloads/BROWSER-RETRIEVAL.md); DOCX sha256 c6d4ec42a5ebe4dcc462272bbb5971c6d18fe611dbd40ce11b9d8bcf136a84eb. Confirm applicability to your cohort.
- ATARMAxxing Psychology ATAR Year 12 Syllabus — for teaching from 2027 guide — ATARMAxxing; 2026-11-14. Original existing study guide, not an independent official verification or a forecast of a future syllabus.
- TISC 2025 scaling report: Psychology — TISC; 2026-11-12. TISC’s mean scaled scores summarise all students with a scaled score in the published course. The mean describes a cohort and gives no individual raw-to-scaled conversion.
- Psychology ATAR: Year 11 syllabus — SCSA; 2026-11-13. Primary PDF course identity and available effective date checked against the observed source link. PDF ATAR Year 11 Syllabus – For teaching from 2026 (775.0 KB) opens in new window. Learning summaries are our paraphrases; assessment type names do not establish a school's task schedule or weighting. © School Curriculum and Standards Authority, CC BY 4.0; see the document notice.
- Psychology ATAR: Year 11 syllabus, page 3 — SCSA; 2026-11-13. Primary PDF course identity and available effective date checked against the observed source link. PDF ATAR Year 11 Syllabus – For teaching from 2026 (775.0 KB) opens in new window. Learning summaries are our paraphrases; assessment type names do not establish a school's task schedule or weighting. © School Curriculum and Standards Authority, CC BY 4.0; see the document notice.
- Psychology ATAR: Year 11 syllabus, page 25 — SCSA; 2026-11-13. Primary PDF course identity and available effective date checked against the observed source link. PDF ATAR Year 11 Syllabus – For teaching from 2026 (775.0 KB) opens in new window. Learning summaries are our paraphrases; assessment type names do not establish a school's task schedule or weighting. © School Curriculum and Standards Authority, CC BY 4.0; see the document notice.
- Psychology ATAR: Year 12 syllabus — SCSA; 2026-11-13. UNVERIFIED PDF body/version: this is the publicly advertised source link. Do not treat its unseen learning or assessment details as checked.
- TISC 2025 scaling report: Psychology — TISC; 2026-11-12. TISC’s mean scaled scores summarise all students with a scaled score in the published course. The mean describes a cohort and gives no individual raw-to-scaled conversion.