I took this course in fall 2010, and it was taught by Dr. Day, who I found to be one of the best lecturers I've encountered at McMaster thus far.

In this course, you learn about many common mental disorders, such as: ADHD, Autism, Anxiety Disorders, Dissociative Disorders,...

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Originally Posted by Sultan

Since a few questions for testing come from the textbook, what exactly does that mean? Is it any random question from the text so you have to read everything and take notes or are they the same questions that are asked in the "in review" box of the book?

They are random. You have to read everything.

I'm also wondering where the textbook questions are coming from....the chapters are so long! Is just reading them ok or should I make notes too?

Originally Posted by nh007

I'm also wondering where the textbook questions are coming from....the chapters are so long! Is just reading them ok or should I make notes too?

Do whatever you need to do to remember all the random details in it. Some people have better memories than others...so some people would be fine reading it once, others would need to read it multiple times, etc. No one can really tell you how to do this, you have to figure out how you learn yourself.

Can anyone who's taken the course this term gimme their opinion of it .

Originally Posted by Angoose

Can anyone who's taken the course this term gimme their opinion of it .

I took it this term and I loved it! Like everyone says, Dr Day is the best lecturer I've had at McMaster so far. His pacing is perfect, everything he says is easy to understand, and he's very engaging. He has lots of funny stories, and we also had special lectures during which people who had suffered from a mental disorder we had discussed talked about their experiences, so that was really interesting. Another pro about the course is that the lectures are recorded so if you miss one, it won't hurt you as long as you listen to it on your own time. Last of all, the fact that the majority of the questions on the midterms and exam were directly from his online quiz bank was a tremendous help because his questions can get very tricky. The only part I didn't like about this course was the readings. Though they were sort of interesting, I found them insanely long. He also takes the most random details out of the book to test on his midterms and exam...though I did all the readings and even made notes on them, I felt like I was guessing the answers to those questions most of the time. :\ But I still did very well in the course so a double digit grade is easily acquired if you listen to all the lectures, do all the readings, and, most importantly, do as many sample questions as you possibly can!

I took this course with Dr. Day in second term of 2011-2012.

I found this course MUCH more difficult than Personality (psych 2B03). If you have a choice, I highly suggest taking 2B03 instead.

This is for two reasons: first of all, abnormal psych has a lot of numbers and statistics, as well as brain areas to keep track of. This is harder to learn, but also makes the course more boring.

The best way to kill a discussion of something interesting like schizophrenia is to be forced to learn that the overall prevalence is x % and it has a, b, c, d brain areas involved, whereas another disease may only have a, b, and c, while a third disorder has a, b, d, and e.

The other reason why this course is more difficult is because the textbook readings are brutal. The first midterm had readings of like, 150 pages, and the exam had readings of about 120 pages. These are dense, long pages FULL of numbers, brain areas, and random experiments/studies. And he asks about specific numbers often on the midterms.

It took me hours to read those textbook pages, and because only 8-10 of the questions on the midterm came from them, I would often read 20-30 pages where only 1 question would be taken, and I forgot exactly what the percentage / statistic was so I got it wrong anyway.

If you want to do really well, this course isn't the best. If you want to do well, go ahead and take it. If you don't really care about a 12 and you'd be fine just guessing on those textbook problems then it wouldn't be too bad. But if you want to get a 12 for sure you need to read every page of the textbook which takes a long time.

Overall still a good course, just a little annoying at times.

I took this course winter 2012 and found it to be a very low maintenance class. I attended 3 lectures, the classes with the guest speakers , and watched no pod-casts and ended up with a 11.

You just have to know how to study for the course. The 3 guest lectures are a must attend, you have to know the course book inside and out and you have to practice as many questions as possible from dick day's site. Honestly just spend hours and hours practicing as many as possible and you will be fine for the tests.

As for the text book, I never actually finished the readings for the test before the test, and I don't know if it would have made a huge difference. The chapters were dense and he asks random questions, not information that seems to be important or highlighted in the book- he just chooses one of the many listed statistics. I found that you could usually guess one or two of the questions though if you skimmed a chapter or two.

But overall easy and actually pretty interesting.

Did anyone buy the courseware for Psych2AP3? Was it useful? Does it have notes like the personality handbook?

I just took Abnormal Psych this past term, and it's probably the most interesting course I've had so far. While I didn't have too much time to read the textbook, 20-25% of the text questions came up on the tests. Those questions were pretty much pure guessing for me because I couldn't recall many of the specific details. The final exam was a little trickier than I had anticipated. There were three guest lecturers each with 2-3 questions on the exam. I came out of the course and did alright, but I found Psych2b03 was an easier elective, although far less interesting.

Has anyone taken this course in the summer? The teacher for it is Oriane Landry and she's an assistant prof in the psychology department. Has anyone ever had her as a teacher and would care to share some feedback on how she was as a prof?

Originally Posted by hanners

Has anyone taken this course in the summer? The teacher for it is Oriane Landry and she's an assistant prof in the psychology department. Has anyone ever had her as a teacher and would care to share some feedback on how she was as a prof?

Hey! I'm also thinking about taking psych 2AP3 this summer, someone please answer this!