Fifteen honest minutes. Then we stop.

A streak is distinct calendar days you actually finished — not minutes performed. The sitting date is a countdown, not a threat. 0 days finished.

No unofficial check yet

If you want a map of the gaps, take the twelve-item diagnostic. If you want to feel the subject tonight, start with 1.3 — the neuron. Both are honest.

Diagnostic Start 1.3 now

The topic that will teach you the most tonight

1.3 The Neuron and Neural Firing

A scene, the mechanism, a lived case, four items, one apply. Then we stop.

How psychologists know

Methods language for AAQ and EBQ

Independents survive the exam by naming what a design can claim. Keep this drawer open while you write an AAQ. I will not bury you in bureaucracy — just the words that earn the move.

What each method can claim

AAQ will ask you to name the method in THIS source. The name is only half the mark-move. The other half is what that method can and cannot claim.

Experiment: researcher manipulates an independent variable, often with random assignment. Can support causal claims if confounds are controlled — still bound by sample and operational definitions.
Correlation / many surveys: measures variables as they come. Can state direction and strength of association. Cannot, by itself, prove cause.
Survey: self-report from a sample. Good for described beliefs and reports; watch wording, honesty, and who answered.
Case study: one person or a small set, in depth. Rich and bounded. Do not treat it as the species.
Naturalistic observation: behavior in a setting without a staged IV. Can describe what happened there. Harder to isolate cause.

IV, DV, operational definition, random assignment, confound

These five words do most of Practice 2.

Independent variable (IV): what the researcher arranges or compares as the presumed cause in an experiment.
Dependent variable (DV): what is measured as the outcome.
Operational definition: how a variable is actually measured or staged in THIS study (not the dictionary).
Random assignment: placing participants into conditions by chance so groups start comparable. Different from random sampling (who gets into the study).
Confound: an extra difference between conditions that could explain the DV. If phones and caffeine and light all move together, you do not know which did the work.

Ethics language the AAQ actually uses

October 2025 wording to train against: Identify one ethical guideline described in the study. Describe one way the researchers in the study applied this ethical guideline. Identify + apply. A memorized list without the source is not the move.

Informed consent (and assent when a participant is not able to consent as an adult): people are told enough, including the right to stop, before they take part.
Protection from harm: foreseeable distress is minimized and justified; withdrawal is real, not theatrical.
Confidentiality / anonymity: who can see a person’s data, and whether identities are attached. They are not the same word.
Deception + debriefing: if people were misled, they are later told what happened and why. Debriefing is the application you often describe.
IRB as an idea: a review that asks whether a study should run. Not a bureaucracy lecture — a check that ethics were not a solo hobby.

Reading a simple result

Practice 3 is not formula theater. Say what the display shows, then what it cannot show.

Direction: which group scored higher, whether an association is positive or negative.
Comparison: compared with whom, on what operational measure.
Limit: sample, design, and alternative explanations still standing.
If you mention that a difference was treated as meaningful, stay inside that idea — no fake computation of p or d.

How this drawer saves an independent

You may not have AP Classroom. You still need the language. Open this drawer from any Topic Studio. When an article’s illustration asks ‘how AAQ would probe it,’ it is pointing here.

AAQ: one source, six parts, 25 minutes including reading. Method, variable, statistic, ethics (identify + how applied), generalizability, argumentation.
EBQ: three sources, a claim, two evidence pieces tied to cards, reasoning plus a named CED concept.
If you cannot see the method in the source, do not guess a famous name from memory.