Photo credit: Andreas Bayerl

Admission Test for the Master’s Program in Psychology

The testing date of the voluntary admission test will be announced in January. The test is expected to take place in May 2020.

Please note that the test is in German. To register for it, please go to the German page.

Taking the admission test is a way of proving that your qualification is sufficient to pursue a master’s degree in Psychology. Your participation in the test is voluntary; the results can be taken into account in addition to the other selection requirements. To be able to complete the test, you will require knowledge that corresponds to the contents taught in a bachelor’s program in Psychology or an equivalent program.

The test takes 90 minutes and contains 160 items. It is a multiple choice test with 5 options per question only one of which is correct, and it is free of charge.

Applicants taking the test may receive up to 10 additional points. They will only be awarded additional points if they achieve at least 30% of the maximally available points.

Test results are valid for the current allocation period only and cannot be transferred to the following year. It is possible to take the admission test multiple times.

Calculation of additional points

The number of additional points awarded depends on an applicant’s individual performance in relation to the distribution of points among all participants in the same year who achieved at least 30% of the maximally available points. These participants’ test results are ranked from the lowest to the highest. The percentile ranks of the test results are divided into 10 intervals that correspond to the first 10% (percentile rank >90), the second 10% (percentile rank >80 to 90) etc. Additional points are awarded based on the interval the applicant’s individual performance falls into:

Percentile rank >90: 10 additional points
Percentile ranks >80 to 90: 9 additional points
Percentile ranks >70 to 80: 8 additional points
Percentile ranks >60 to 70: 7 additional points
Percentile ranks >50 to 60: 6 additional points
Percentile ranks >40 to 50: 5 additional points
Percentile ranks >30 to 40: 4 additional points
Percentile ranks >20 to 30: 3 additional points
Percentile ranks >10 to 20: 2 additional points
Percentile ranks >0 to 10: 1 additional point

In case the points an applicant has achieved cannot be exactly assigned to one of the defined intervals but fall between two percentile ranks, he or she will be awarded the higher number of additional points.
What subjects do the questions in the test refer to?
To be able to answer the questions in the test, you will need to have acquired basic knowledge of general psychological principles, methods, and applied subjects. The following subjects are covered:

Statistics

General Principles of Assessment

General Psychology I + II (Thought, Language, Memory, Learning, Motivation, Emotion, Perception)

Biological Psychology

Developmental Psychology

Differential Psychology and Personality Research

Social Psychology

Work and Organizational Psychology

Consumer Psychology

Clinical Psychology

Educational Psychology
Sample items

1. What is the correlation between an item and its corresponding scale called?
a) Item-total correlation
b) Item difficulty
c) Covariance
d) Cronbach's alpha
e) Beta coefficient

2. What do you call the difference between the right and left retinal images?
a) Emmert’s law
b) Müller-Lyer illusion
c) Ponzo illusion
d) Binocular disparity
e) Relative perspective

3. With respect to depression, what does the cognitive triad (Beck, 1979) describe?
a) The interplay between affect, behavior, and cognition
b) The connection between pain, perception of pain, and emotion
c) Not having been able to cope with loss, which leads to frustration, self-loathing, and self-blame
d) Negative thoughts about oneself, the world, and the future
e) Arbitrary inference, selective abstraction, and overgeneralization

Calculation of additional points

What subjects do the questions in the test refer to?

Sample items