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Admission Test for the Master’s Program in Psychology

Information on the application year 2024: The admission test for an application for the fall/winter semester 2024/25 will take place on June 21, 2024 from 2 p.m.at the University of Mannheim. Participation is only possible in presence.

Registration for participation in the admission test will only be possible during the application period for a study place and only via this website. Applicants for a place in the Master's in Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy and/or Master's in Psychology with a focus on Work, Economics and Society must apply for a place within the application period. You then register for the admission test via this website afterwards.

Please have your application number(s) ready when you register for the admission test.

After the test registration and application deadline, all applicants who have registered to take the admission test via this website by the deadline will receive a personal invitation to the test. This invitation will include information about the test time and location.

Only those who have applied for a study place within the application deadline and registered for the admission test via this website during the same period can take part in the admission test.

Link to registration (from April 1, 2024)

The admission test is an optional selection criterion for the additional determination of professional aptitude for the master’s degree programs M.Sc. Psychology Work, Economy and Society and M.Sc. Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy.

The duration of the test is 90 minutes, and the test comprises 172 items. The answer format is multiple-choice with 5 answer alternatives, of which exactly one is correct. The test is free of charge. The test language is German. Participation is only possible on the announced date and in presence.

Applicants who take the admission test can earn up to 20 additional points. A necessary condition for the award of additional points is that the proportion of correctly answered test items corresponds to at least 30% of the maximum achievable score.

The result of the admission test is only valid for the current admission procedure and cannot be transferred to the following year. Repeated participation in the admission test is possible.

Specific recommendations for preparation cannot be given. The knowledge acquired in a bachelor’s degree programme in psychology or in an equivalent bachelor's degree should prepare for test participation.

  • 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: 20 additional points
    • Percentile ranks >80 to 90: 18 additional points
    • Percentile ranks >70 to 80: 16 additional points
    • Percentile ranks >60 to 70: 14 additional points
    • Percentile ranks >50 to 60: 12 additional points
    • Percentile ranks >40 to 50: 10 additional points
    • Percentile ranks >30 to 40: 8 additional points
    • Percentile ranks >20 to 30: 6 additional points
    • Percentile ranks >10 to 20: 4 additional points
    • Percentile ranks >0 to 10: 2 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?

    The test asks for basic knowledge from the fundamentals, methods and application areas of psychology (and psychotherapy).

    This includes the following subjects in the fundamentals and methods:

    • General Psychology (Thinking, Language, Memory, Learning, Motivation, Emotion, Perception)
    • Professional Ethics and Professional Law
    • Biological Psychology and Neuropsychology
    • Differential Psychology and Personality Research
    • Developmental Psychology
    • Basics of Psychological Diagnostics and Test Theory
    • Social Psychology
    • Statistics
    • Empirical or Experimental Methods

    Application areas (At least three application areas must be completed. If more than three are completed, the three best are included in the test evaluation):

    • Work and Organizational Psychology
    • Consumer Psychology
    • Educational Psychology
    • Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy
    • Fundamentals of Medicine for Psychotherapists1
    • Fundamentals of Pharmacology for Psychotherapists1
    • Preventive and Rehabilitative Concepts of Psychotherapeutic Action

    1Are queried in one application area.

  • 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