Books required to crack Psychology Entrance Exams
In order to take admission to masters and phd courses most of the universities conduct entrance tests. In order to get admission in these universities you have to crack these entrance exams.
How can you prepare yourself for these entrances and ensure that you crack these exams?
Syllabus- First you have to be prepared for the syllabus of the entrance test.
Practice- Second you have to practice a lot of test papers.
Presence of mind- And third you have use your brain to solve the entrance questions, as questions can be tricky. Also not all questions will come from the syllabus you have prepared. However the amount of familiarity and thoroughness with the syllabus and the amount of practice you have done will influence whether you will be able to solve the tricky and unseen questions or not.
How can I help?
Here I will help you with the first part of your preparation. I will suggest you the most important basic books for each part of your psychology entrance tests. These books will be helpful to you for all kinds of psychology entrances, either M.A., PhD, SCS, UPSC etc.
These books will help you in concept clarity, which is the most important part of any entrance preparation. If you know the concepts you will be able to solve those tricky questions.
Below is the list of all the major topics that can be found in any entrance exam and the most recommended book (s) for those topics.
Use Zimbardo for General Psychology. If you really want to clear your concepts of general psychology without getting confused. It is the best book. Don’t go for any other book for general psychology. No Baron, Passer and Smith or any other book can replace the quality of this book. I am sure if you read this book with heart you will be able to solve all the basic questions.
#You can go for Ciccarelli in case you are totally new to Psychology. But if you have read any basic book before or you have completed your bachelors then please don’t waste your time in other basic books. Just go for Zimbardo only.
Use king and minium for Statistics. No book can compete with this book in explaining and comprehensively covering concepts of statistics. This is the most basic book and you can solve various statistics entrance questions from this book.
UseCarlsonfor Biopsychology. It is the most basic book for Biopsychology and it covers all the topics that are asked in entrance exams. If you prepare important parts from it then it will be sufficient for you to solve many questions.
I would suggest that you draw flow charts and diagrams for better concept clarity while you are reading.
For history of Psychology you can use Leahey. If you don’t find it easy to read then you can go for any Indian author. You can try reading Schultz and Schultz as this seems to be a good book as its righting style and the content pattern looks to be reader friendly.
For research methodology you can use Neuman and kerlinger as I find both of them good for this subject.
Use Baron for Social Psychology. It is the basic book that covers all the topics very well. If you read this entire book in depth you will be able to clear most of the questions in any psychology entrance exams.
Carson is the best book for Abnormal Psychology. It covers all the topics very well. Its a basic book for abnormal psychology. You can definitely try referring other books like Barlow of abnormal psychology if you want to make detailed notes of any topic. otherwise for psychology entrance exams this book will suffice.
Berk is THE book for Developmental Psychology. It is so detailed and so nicely written that you can not find such detailed information in any other book. If you read this book I am damn sure you will not miss even a single question in either your M.A. Psychology entrance exam or Ph.D Psychology entrance exam. This is little thick so don’t get afraid from reading this as no book can replace this in anyway. The only issue with this book is that it so comprehensively covers child development that it ignores development across life span, even development in adulthood.
Kavita singhis the book by an Indian author and has sufficient content which is enough for basic understanding.Robbinscan also be used as either main or supplementary book as the concepts in both the books are same but the writing style is different and the way both of them explains the concepts is also different. So you can try reading both and figure out which suits you best.
Corey is the best book for Counselling Psychology as it covers the concept especially the techniques and theories so well that you will not need any other reference after reading from this book. The book covers everything in so detail that you actually feel satisfied that you have read something. Gladding on the other hand is a very basic book. Though it covers almost everything but nothing is covered in detail. So I would recommend you to read gladding selectively only for information or topic that you can’t find anywhere.
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