Dear Aspirant,

M.A. Psychology is a two-year postgraduate course in Psychology with specialisations such as Clinical Psychology, Counselling Psychology, Human Resource Management, Social Psychology and so on. The syllabus of the Psychology entrance exam for Masters differs from colleges to college. Generally, these are the topics discussed:

1. Psychology: Historical Background, Methods. Sensation, Perception, Emotion, Motivation, Personality, and Intelligence.
2. Psychophysics, Conditioning, Learning, Memory, Forgetting, Thinking, and Problem Solving.
3. Socialization, Group and Group Behaviour, Leadership, Attitude, Stereotypes, Prejudice, Aggression, and Pro-social Behaviour.
4. Human Development: Prenatal stage, Infancy stage, Childhood stage and Adolescent stage, and Adulthood stage.
5. Models of Psychopathology, Classification of Disorders (DSM System), Diagnostic Assessment Techniques, Anxiety Based Disorders, Mood Disorders, and Substance Abuse.
6. Applications of Psychology in the area of Health, Guidance and Counselling, Organization, and Law.
7. Statistics: Frequency Distribution, Graphical Presentation of Data, Measures of Central Tendencies, Measures of Variability. Correlation- Meaning, Rank Difference, and Product Moment Method.
8. History, Schools of thought in Psychology; Perception, Motivation, Personality, Learning, Social psychology.

Often, Current Affairs are also asked. These include:

• Major Social/Economic/Political News
• Who're Who/personalities
• Sports
• Books and Authors
• Awards and Honors
• Science – Inventions and Discoveries
• Popular Abbreviations
• Important Dates
• National/International Organizations

For this go through the books of B.A. Psychology like Baron and Feldman for the Basics of Psychology. Revise from NCERT 11th and 12th books. Mostly the colleges conduct a personal interview after the test where the examiner will assess you again mostly for the basics. Know the names of psychologists and who did what. Study all the classic studies like the Prison Experiment and Pavlov's conditioning and know the people who conducted them and the results. The books would again depend on the college you are opting for. Also, try to understand the concepts if at all there are subjective questions or you are asked in the interview.

Hope this helps. All the best!