Ask a Psychology class to “evaluate the use of the laboratory experiment,” and a good third will describe an experiment instead. The content is in their heads — they know the core studies cold — but the command word asked for a different job, and they did the one they’d practised most. That mismatch between what students know and what a question actually demands is the daily reality of teaching Cambridge International A Level Psychology (9990), and it’s exactly what a well-built question bank is for: not admiring how many past-paper items it holds, but pulling the precise questions that drill the precise skill — describe, evaluate, suggest, design — a class keeps getting wrong. This guide is about using a 9990 question bank to set work by content and by the thinking a question requires.

What “by topic” actually means in 9990

9990 doesn’t organise cleanly into a chapter list, so a question bank worth using has to be tagged along more than one axis. The three that matter:

• By approach and core study. The syllabus is built on a set of approaches — biological, cognitive, learning and social — each illustrated by named core studies (the classic examples include Milgram on obedience, Bandura on aggression, and Dement and Kleitman on sleep and dreaming, though you should confirm the exact current set against the syllabus). Being able to pull every past-paper question on one study, or one approach, is the foundation.
• By research-methods concept. The methods strand cuts across everything: experiments, observations, self-reports, correlations; sampling techniques; experimental designs; validity, reliability and ethics; and the descriptive-statistics and data-interpretation items. A bank should let you filter to “questions on validity” or “questions involving a scattergram” independently of the study they’re attached to.
• By command word / assessment objective. “Describe” is a knowledge task; “evaluate” and “discuss” are judgement tasks; “suggest” and “design” are application tasks. Filtering by command word lets you train the skill, not just revisit the content.

That third axis is what most folders of past papers can’t give you, and it’s the one 9990 students most need. The broader case for tagging this way is in the parent guide, what a teacher question bank should actually cover; 9990 is a strong case for it because the same content is examined through very different command words.

Content, skill and difficulty — the filters a folder can’t combine

Topic alone under-serves Psychology. “Milgram” spans a two-mark “state the sample” recall item and a high-tariff “evaluate the ethics of the study” argument. Setting both to the same group wastes the confident students and strands the rest. A 9990 bank that combines content, command word and difficulty lets you:

• Give a shaky group the short, point-marked knowledge questions on a study first — build the accurate detail before asking them to evaluate it.
• Stretch a secure group with the “discuss the extent to which…” and study-design questions that actually separate the top bands.
• Build one homework that ramps — a couple of describe items, then an evaluate, then a suggest/design — so every student rehearses the full ladder of skills on a single topic.

For the principle behind setting work this way, see assigning past-paper questions by topic and difficulty; this page is the 9990-specific version.

Three ways teachers actually use a 9990 bank

Targeted practice after a core study. You’ve just taught the study of aggression. Instead of “revise it,” pull the genuine past-paper items on that study across command words — a describe, an evaluate, a “suggest how the study could be improved” — so students practise the real range of demands, in Cambridge’s phrasing, not a textbook paraphrase.

Drilling a research-methods weakness. Methods is where marks quietly leak. If your class keeps confusing reliability and validity, or can’t design a controlled study, a concept filter lets you assemble a focused set on exactly that — including the “design a study to investigate…” items that are pure application — rather than hoping it resurfaces.

Rehearsing the command word itself. When students describe where they should evaluate, set a run of evaluate-only questions across several different studies. Same skill, varied content: it forces them to notice what the command word is really asking, which is half the battle in 9990.

What “good” looks like — and what to be wary of

A 9990 question bank earns its place when it has: accurate tagging by approach, core study, methods concept and command word; a difficulty signal you can trust; the mark scheme alongside each item — the creditable points for the knowledge questions and the level descriptors for the evaluation and design questions, so students see how each type is judged; and enough breadth that you’re not recycling the same handful of questions each term. Be wary of banks that tag loosely (“Social approach” with no study or skill breakdown), that strip the mark scheme, or that fold in questions from a different specification whose command words and core studies don’t match what your students will sit.

A note on honesty about scale: the platform reports a large shared question bank across subjects (200,000+ questions), but the number that matters to you is coverage of your approaches, your core studies and your methods concepts. Judge a 9990 bank by depth across those, not by the headline total.

How this looks on the platform

Tutopiya’s Cambridge A Level Psychology 9990 resources let you filter past-paper questions by approach, core study, research-methods concept and command word, set them as homework or a quiz, and have the point-marked knowledge and methods items auto-marked to the Cambridge scheme so you see exactly which skill a class dropped — while the evaluation and design questions come back as a first pass for your review. It’s free to start with one class. For the wider toolkit, see the teacher platform these guides put to work.

This is one of four 9990 guides. The others cover marking 9990 to the Cambridge mark scheme, building a 9990 mock exam from past papers, and 9990 lesson resources mapped to the syllabus.

FAQ

Can I pull 9990 questions for a single core study or approach? That’s the main reason to use a question bank over a stack of papers. A bank tagged by approach and by individual core study lets you assemble every past-paper item on one study — across describe, evaluate and suggest command words — in minutes, rather than scanning whole papers for the two questions you want.

Can I filter by research-methods concept as well as by study? You should be able to. The methods strand — experiments, observations, self-reports, correlations, sampling, validity, reliability and ethics — cuts across the whole course, so a bank that lets you pull “questions on validity” or “questions with a scattergram” independently of the study is far more useful for closing a methods gap.

Can I set questions by command word to train the skill? Yes, and for 9990 it’s one of the most valuable filters. Students often do the task they’ve practised most (describe) when a question asks for something else (evaluate). Setting a run of the same command word across different studies trains them to read what the question actually demands.

Does it include the mark scheme with each question? A 9990 bank worth using keeps the Cambridge scheme with each item — the creditable points for the knowledge questions and the level descriptors for evaluation and study design — so students see how each type earns marks. A bank that strips the scheme is much weaker for exam preparation.

How does this differ from just giving students past papers? A whole paper tests many studies and skills at once and takes a long time to mark. A question bank lets you target one study, one methods concept or one command word, grade it by difficulty, re-test a gap your data exposed, and auto-mark the point-marked parts — turning the same questions into something you can act on week to week.

The bottom line

A 9990 question bank is worth using when it’s tagged by approach, core study, research-methods concept and command word, graded by difficulty, and carries the mark scheme with every item. Used that way, it turns “revise Psychology” into “practise the exact skill — evaluate this study, design this investigation — this class keeps dropping,” which is the difference between practice that fills time and practice that moves grades.

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