PSYC1024 · Anxiety, Mood and Stress
The Complete Exam Bible · T2 2026Anxiety, Mood and Stress
PSYC1024 Anxiety, Mood and Stress (the UNSW handbook long title is "Clinical Perspectives on Anxiety, Mood and Stress") is a first-year psychology course taught entirely online through Moodle, and like most UNSW courses it carries the standard 6 units of credit (UOC). It runs across ten teaching weeks and builds one idea on the next: it opens with psychology as a science — what a psychologist, clinical psychologist, psychiatrist and psychological scientist actually do, and the scientific method that underpins evidence-based practice — then the science of emotion (components of emotion, moods vs affect, discrete vs dimensional accounts and the four families of emotion theory). From Week 4 it turns biological: the neurobiology of fear and anxiety (the amygdala fear circuit and fight-or-flight), what makes anxiety a disorder, the specific anxiety disorders, mood and depression, evidence-based treatment (CBT, exposure, medication), and finally the stress response and the HPA axis. It is a concept-and-mechanism course with no maths — marks come from precise definitions, correctly applied models and clear scientific writing, not calculation. Assessment is three tasks: a 20% mid-term of 20 multiple-choice questions on Moodle (Friday of Week 5, drawing only on Weeks 1–2 & 4–5), a 40% 500-word written assessment submitted via Moodle Turnitin (due Friday of Week 7), and a 40% final exam of 80 multiple-choice questions across all topics, delivered online via Inspera in a 24-hour window during the Term 2 examination period and taken closed-book. No hurdle is stated for any component, but two multiple-choice papers together decide 60% of the mark, so definitional precision under time pressure is what the course rewards. Your PSYC1024 result feeds the Weighted Average Mark (WAM) that later psychology courses build on; confirm every weight, date and rule on Moodle and the UNSW Course Outline.
What PSYC1024 covers
PSYC1024 runs across ten teaching weeks on UNSW's Moodle, moving from psychology as a science and the science of emotion into the neurobiology of fear, anxiety, mood and stress, then anxiety and mood disorders, treatment, and the stress response and coping. It is assessed by two multiple-choice papers — a 20% Week-5 mid-term (Weeks 1–2 & 4–5) and a 40% 80-question Inspera final over all topics — plus a 40% 500-word written assessment, so the guide drills both MCQ mastery and the short write-up.
How PSYC1024 is assessed
| Component | Weight | Format |
|---|---|---|
| Mid-term exam | 20% | 20 multiple-choice questions, online via Moodle, Friday Week 5, available 9am–11:59pm Sydney time; covers Weeks 1–2 & 4–5 |
| Written Assessment | 40% | 500-word written assessment, submitted via Moodle Turnitin by Friday Week 7 11:59pm; 5-day late deadline then zero |
| Final Exam | 40% | 80 multiple-choice questions covering all topics, online via Inspera, available for a 24-hour window in the exam period, closed-book |
Emotion, mood or affect? Classify a state and decompose it
- +1Emotion vs mood. It is an emotion, not a mood: it is short-lived and has "aboutness" — it is directed at a specific, identifiable trigger (the cancellation text) rather than being a diffuse state with no clear cause that lingers for days. Its valence is negative (an unpleasant "bad" affective state).
- +1Stimulus and cognition. Stimulus / trigger = the text announcing the cancellation (the event the emotion is about). Cognition (the thought) = "of course, today of all days" — an appraisal that the outcome is unfair or badly timed.
- +1Physiology and behaviour. Physiology = the bodily changes: chest tightening and a clenched jaw (autonomic arousal). Behaviour = the expressive/motor output: muttering under her breath, tensed posture and facial expression.
- +1Conscious experience. The fifth component in Kuppens' scientific version is conscious experience — Priya's awareness of the whole context (the cold platform, her tiredness, the crowd) that colours the felt episode. Folk versions list only four components (stimulus, cognition, physiology, behaviour); the scientific version adds this fifth.
Key terms
- Scientific method
- A systematic process for making observations in a specific, unbiased way, designed to reduce error and minimise bias. It is circular and never-ending: theory → prediction → hypothesis → test → evidence that supports or refutes → revise. It never "proves" — science advances by failing to disprove the most accurate ideas.
- Operationalisation
- Defining a variable by exactly how it will be measured, so it is unambiguous (e.g. defining startle by the height in cm a person jumps). A good operational definition is observable, objective, replicable and valid (it actually captures the intended construct).
- Components of emotion
- The recurring organising concept of the course: an emotion is built from a stimulus/trigger, cognition (thoughts), physiology (bodily changes) and behaviour (expression), with a fifth — conscious experience — in Kuppens' scientific version. No single theory covers all components the same way, but collectively they recur across theories.
- Emotion vs mood vs affect
- An emotion is short and has "aboutness" (directed at a specific trigger); a mood is longer (days–months), diffuse and often has no identifiable cause; affect is the umbrella term over moods, emotions and feelings, plus their valence (positive ↔ negative).
- Fear vs anxiety
- Fear is an acute response to a present, identifiable, imminent threat that drives fight-or-flight; anxiety is anticipatory apprehension about a future, uncertain or potential threat — more diffuse and future-oriented (hypervigilance, worry, muscle tension). This maps onto the specific-vs-diffuse distinction from the emotion weeks.
- HPA axis
- The Hypothalamic–Pituitary–Adrenal endocrine stress pathway: the hypothalamus releases CRH → the anterior pituitary releases ACTH → the adrenal cortex releases cortisol, the primary stress hormone. Cortisol mobilises energy and switches the axis off by negative feedback; chronic elevation is implicated in anxiety and depression.
PSYC1024 FAQ
Is PSYC1024 hard?
It is conceptually broad rather than mathematically hard — there is no maths in this course. The challenge is keeping a large vocabulary of precise definitions straight (emotion vs mood vs affect, fear vs anxiety, the four emotion theories, the anxiety and mood disorders, the HPA cascade) because 60% of the mark comes from two multiple-choice papers where a single wrong qualifier loses the item. Students who learn the definitions the standard way and can apply each model to a fresh scenario, rather than half-recognising terms, tend to find it very manageable. Steady weekly work through Moodle also protects your WAM and puts an HD (85+) or DN (75–84) within reach.
Can AI help me with PSYC1024?
Yes, as a step-by-step study aid. Sia is an AI tutor built to mirror how PSYC1024 is actually taught and assessed at UNSW Sydney: it can walk you through the components of emotion, the discrete-vs-dimensional debate, the amygdala fear circuit, the DSM criteria for an anxiety or mood disorder, or the HPA-axis cascade one line at a time, and it checks your reasoning as you go. Bring your own revision-quiz or practice question and ask Sia to explain each step. It does not do graded assessment for you — not the written assessment, not the exams — and UNSW Sydney academic-integrity rules still apply, so use it to understand the method, never to produce work you submit.
Where can I find past exam papers / practice for PSYC1024?
Start on Moodle, where the course posts its revision quizzes, self-determined activity sheets and any exam-preparation material, and search the UNSW Library's past-exam-paper collection for released papers (note the mid-term and final are both online multiple-choice, so the closest practice is the weekly revision quizzes rather than a written past paper). This guide also includes a re-authored practice set that mirrors the MCQ shape across all topics with fresh scenarios, and you can ask Sia to generate extra items in the same style and explain each answer. Confirm what is officially provided on Moodle.
What are the PSYC1024 hurdles and assessment rules?
No hurdle requirement is stated for any of the three tasks in the official assessment summary — but absence of a stated hurdle is not the same as a confirmed no-hurdle, so confirm on your Course Outline; do not assume. The rules that do bite: the 500-word written assessment goes through Moodle Turnitin and anything submitted after the 5-day late deadline scores zero, and the mid-term is a single timed window on Moodle in Week 5 while the final is a 24-hour Inspera window in the Term 2 examination period. The weights are Mid-term 20% · Written Assessment 40% · Final Exam 40% — note the written piece is worth as much as the final, so do not treat it as a minor task. UNSW's academic-integrity and plagiarism policy applies to all of it.
What is on the PSYC1024 final exam?
80 multiple-choice questions spanning every topic in the course — psychology as a science, the science and theories of emotion, fear and anxiety and their neurobiology, the anxiety disorders, mood and depression, treatment, and the stress response and HPA axis. It is delivered online via Inspera, administered by the UNSW Exams Team, and open for a 24-hour window from your personalised exam date; it is taken closed-book (the handbook notes there is insufficient time to consult reference material). Because it is all multiple choice, the exam rewards fast, accurate recall and the ability to apply a definition to a novel case rather than long written answers. The exam sits in the Term 2 examination period (around mid-to-late August) — confirm your exact 24-hour window via your personalised myUNSW exam timetable.
How to study for the exam
Treat PSYC1024 as a definitions-and-models course and rehearse it weekly rather than cramming, because two multiple-choice papers decide 60% of the mark and MCQs punish fuzzy recall. Build a one-page term sheet for each week and, for every concept, be able to (1) state the standard definition and (2) apply it to a scenario you have not seen — that second skill is exactly what the application-style MCQs test. Drill the high-confusion pairs the course keeps returning to: emotion vs mood vs affect, discrete vs dimensional accounts, the four emotion theories (functional/evolutionary, motivational, appraisal, constructionist), fear vs anxiety, adaptive vs disordered anxiety, and the anxiety disorders against one another. For the biological strand, be able to redraw the amygdala fear circuit and the HPA cascade (hypothalamus → CRH → pituitary → ACTH → adrenal cortex → cortisol, with negative feedback) from memory. Prepare the 40% written assessment separately and early: it is a concise 500-word science-writing piece, so practise the claim → evidence → interpretation structure, cite accurately, and stay inside the word limit — and remember Turnitin scores anything past the 5-day late deadline as zero. Use the weekly Moodle revision quizzes as your rehearsal, and when a distinction won't click, ask Sia to explain that one step a different way and set you a fresh practice item in the same style; it teaches the method and checks your reasoning, and it never substitutes for your own graded work. Confirm every weight, the mid-term window and your personalised final-exam date on Moodle and myUNSW.
Your AI Psychology tutor for PSYC1024
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