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WorksheetsAP Psych Test
Total questions: 100
Worksheet time: 1hrs 1mins
A psychotherapist who believes that deviant behavior can be traced either to genetic anomalies or to problems in the physical structure of the brain most likely subscribes to which of the following views of abnormality?
Cognitive
Behavioral
Biomedical
Sociological
Psychoanalytic
A person with obsessive-compulsive disorder is
best described as an individual who experiences
memory loss
intense mood swings
extreme fear of open spaces
physical symptoms with no known cause
persistent anxiety-provoking thoughts
A research design involves two randomly
assigned groups of participants. One group
receives a one-time treatment, and the other does
not. Later, the two groups are compared to see
whether the treatment had an effect. Psychologists
call this kind of research
a correlational study
an experiment
a case study
a survey
a cross-sequential study
The area of the brain stem that is important in
controlling breathing is the
suprachiasmatic nucleus
cerebellum
limbic system
medulla
hippocampus
Egocentrism, animism, and artificialism are
characteristic of which of Jean Piaget’s stages
of cognitive development?
Sensorimotor
Preoperational
Postformal
Concrete operations
Formal operations
Which of the following would an industrial-organizational psychologist be LEAST likely to study?
Managerial skills
Employee motivation
Job satisfaction
Corporate profitability
Pay incentive programs
Vic has unpredictable and repeated attacks of
overwhelming anxiety that frequently leave him
dizzy, nauseous, short of breath, and in tears. A
psychologist is likely to view Vic’s behavior as
indicative of
a panic disorder
a psychotic breakdown
a dissociative reaction
a phobia
an obsession
A stereotype is defined as which of the following?
An adjustment of one’s behavior in response
to peer pressure
An action performed in response to authority
A belief that one’s own culture is superior
to all others
A generalization about a social group
A negative action taken against someone
who is a member of a social group
Rafael has a sleep disorder for which he takes
medically prescribed amphetamines. For which of
the following sleep disorders is Rafael most likely
being treated?
Sleep apnea
Narcolepsy
Insomnia
Circadian rhythm sleep disorder
Somnambulism
The perceived pitch of a tone is largely determined
by its
loudness
timbre
amplitude
complexity
frequency
Balance is influenced by the
cochlea
basilar membrane
eardrum
auditory nerve
semicircular canals
Humanistic psychologists believe that the drive
toward self-actualization is
primarily associated with peak experiences
associated with extroversion
typical of older individuals
innate
a developmental task of adolescence
A stubborn individual who accuses peers of being
uncooperative is exhibiting which of the following
defense mechanisms?
Identification
Denial
Projection
Reaction formation
Sublimation
Harry Harlow’s experiments with rhesus monkeys
suggest which of the following as most important
for infants when establishing an attachment to
their mothers?
The amount of time spent with the mother
The mother’s ability to protect the infant
from physical harm
The mother’s ability to provide nourishment to the infant
The tactile characteristics of the mother
The particular vocalizations of the mother
The biological clock that operates in human
beings to adjust their functioning to night-and-day
periodicity is referred to as
spontaneous neural activity
the biofeedback monitor
a fixed-interval schedule
a circadian rhythm
active consciousness
Visual acuity is best in the
lens
iris
pupil
fovea
cornea
Individuals who believe that an unpleasant
experience is unavoidable and therefore do
nothing to change the course of events are
exhibiting
self-actualization attributes
the fight-or-flight response
attributional deficits
cognitive dissonance
learned helplessness
Which of the following systems produces,
circulates, and regulates levels of hormones in
the body?
Circulatory system
Endocrine system
Limbic system
Sympathetic nervous system
Parasympathetic nervous system
The brain scans of people with amnesia are most
likely to show damage to the
hippocampus
hypothalamus
medulla
reticular formation
cerebellum
In treating a patient for depression, Dr. Pratt
focuses on changing the ways in which the patient
interprets events. Which type of therapy is Dr.
Pratt using?
Cognitive
Self-efficacy
Biomedical
Learning
Psychodynamic
Understanding that things continue to exist even
when they are not within view is called
mental representation
deep structure
a schema
object permanence
assimilation
When is it permissible for a psychologist to share
a client’s test scores with another person?
When an employer inquires about the mental
health status of the client
When the client provides written permission
to share results
When a school official requests the test
scores to aid in a college admission decision
When the test scores are within the normal
range
Never
Community psychologists intervene at the
primary level when they
design prevention programs for potential
problems before the problems actually
occur
deinstitutionalize individuals through the
use of halfway houses
treat currently existing problems before
they reach epidemic proportions
treat currently existing problems only after
they have reached epidemic proportions
treat a disease in an attempt to slow the
spread of it
On individual intelligence tests such as the
Stanford-Binet and Wechsler scales, an IQ of
100 indicates that the test taker
correctly answered all of the items on the test
obtained the highest scores in the standardization sample
scored at the average level for test takers
of the same age
scored above the level of the average
American adult
took as long as the average test taker to
answer the test items
Which of the following is LEAST likely to affect
the immune system’s ability to ward off illness?
Exposure to stress associated with final
examination week
Having a serious argument with a close friend
Experiencing the death of a loved one
Being around someone who has a serious
case of the flu
Suffering sleep deprivation due to staying up
for several nights writing a research paper
The rationale underlying the use of projective
personality tests, such as the Rorschach Test and
the Thematic Apperception Test, is that they
can be efficiently administered in groups and
scored by computer
can be given by almost anyone, since they are
simple to administer and score
reveal the subjects’ personalities by eliciting
responses to vague, ambiguous stimuli
provide clues to the subjects’ personalities
based on behavioral theory
reveal patterns of the subjects’ personality
traits by requiring responses to a large
number of objective questions
The tendency to develop a positive attitude
toward a product that has been advertised
repeatedly in the media is referred to as
impression management
the Purkinje shift
the mere-exposure effect
reaction formation
subliminal suggestion
As you watch a friend walk away from you, your
retinal image of your friend gets smaller. Despite
this, you do not perceive him to be shrinking. This
is an example of
motion parallax
retinal disparity
size constancy
continuity
common fate
Which of the following is the correct sequence
of the neural chain of events set in motion by
an environmental stimulus?
Receptors, afferent neurons, interneurons,
efferent neurons, effectors
Receptors, efferent neurons, interneurons,
afferent neurons, effectors
Interneurons, effectors, receptors, afferent
neurons, efferent neurons
Effectors, interneurons, receptors, afferent
neurons, efferent neurons
Effectors, receptors, afferent neurons, effer-
ent neurons, interneurons
An advantage of group therapy over individual
therapy is that group therapy
requires less commitment from the client
achieves results more quickly
produces a significantly higher recovery rate
produces a higher rate of spontaneous
remission
enables clients to realize that their problems
are not unique
A study can be regarded as scientific only if
it utilizes an effective placebo
its findings are accepted by experts in the
field
its findings are consistent with established
theories
its conclusions are based on strong correlational data
its conclusions can be verified or refuted by
subsequent studies
When a newborn infant is touched on the cheek,
the infant will turn its head toward the source of
stimulation. This behavior is known as
rooting
suckling
the patellar reflex
the Moro reflex
the Babinski reflex
Neurotransmitters are typically stored in which of
the following parts of a neuron?
The nodes of Ranvier
The myelin sheath
The terminal buttons
The soma
The axon
In order to yield information that is generalizable to
the population from which it was drawn, a sample
must be
made up of at least 30 members of the popu-
lation
as large as possible
normally distributed
representative of the population
made up of at least 50 percent of the members
of the population
Individuals exhibiting a hostile type A personality
pattern are at an increased risk for
Alzheimer’s disease
cardiovascular disease
schizophrenia
substance abuse
anorexia nervosa
The factors chiefly responsible for interpersonal
attraction include
proximity and similarity
contrasting values
similar tendencies to dominate or submit
similar attitudes toward authority
shared attributional biases
In a memory study, the experimenter reads
the same list of words to two groups. She asks
group A to count the letters in each word, and
she asks group B to focus on the meaning of each
word for a later memory quiz. During a recall test,
participants in group B recall significantly more
words than participants in group A. Memory
researchers attribute this effect to differences in
priming
levels of processing
proactive interference
procedural memory
episodic memory
Rational-emotive behavior therapy assumes that
abnormal functioning results from which of the
following?
Repression of unpleasant emotions
Malfunctions of the body
Unconscious conflict
Inadequate reinforcement
Unreasonable beliefs or assumptions
According to Freudian theory, the component
of the personality that is “blind, impulsive, and
irrational” is the
ego
ego-ideal
id
libido
superego
In a research study, informed consent is a
concern of
replicability
ethics
statistical significance
practical applicability
cross-cultural representativeness
The correlation between two measures obtained
on a group of individuals is graphically
represented as a
bar graph
normal distribution
histogram
scatterplot
frequency polygon
The concept of habituation is best exemplified by
which of the following situations?
An infant recognizes her father’s voice.
A college student is no longer kept awake by
her roommate’s late-night typing.
A kitten avoids a couch after being
reprimanded for sitting on it.
A rat learns to press a bar for food when a red
light is flashed.
A motorist drives at the speed limit when there
is a police officer in sight on the highway.
The reversible figure above illustrates the Gestalt
organizing principle of
proximity
figure-ground
closure
common fate
simplicity
Staff members at a mental health hospital do not
respond to patients who use threats, but praise
patients who are courteous. Which of the
following psychotherapeutic approaches is
being used?
Assertiveness training
Cognitive therapy
Behavioral therapy
Humanistic therapy
Psychoanalytic therapy
Which of the following is the best example of
shaping?
A child receives five dollars each time he
cleans his room.
An employee receives a termination notice
after coming to work late every day over a
period of three months.
A child gets candy from a dispenser one time
but gets nothing from the dispenser the next
two times.
A teacher rewards a student for sitting quietly
for ten minutes on Monday, fifteen minutes
on Tuesday, twenty minutes on Wednesday,
and thirty minutes on Thursday.
A rat receives a mild shock each time it tries
to open the door of its cage.
David Hubel and Torsten Wiesel’s research
on responses of the brain to visual stimuli
showed that
patterns are recognized exclusively by
template matching
many cortical cells respond most strongly to
specific visual information
pattern recognition occurs in the lateral
geniculate nucleus
the retinal image must be upside down to be
recognized
pattern recognition is better in normal-sighted
individuals than in nearsighted or farsighted
individuals
Judy believes that her fate is determined by her
own actions. Judy’s belief best illustrates
self-actualization
psychological reactance
a preoperational schema
the basis for psychological determinism
an internal locus of control
An instructor conducted an experiment to deter-
mine the effects of two different methods of study on the amount students learned in introductory physics. The results showed that the average amount learned by the group using one method was greater than the average amount learned by the group using the other. However, the difference was not statistically significant. Which of the following is the most appropriate conclusion to be drawn?
The group of students attaining the higher mean score had studied more than the other group.
The better study method will have different effects for students of varying levels of ability.
Neither group learned a significant amount.
There is a positive correlation between the results of the two methods.
There is a possibility that the difference between the two groups occurred by chance.
A student’s test score of 86 is at the 42nd percentile. This means that this student has
received the 42nd highest score
answered 86 percent of the test items correctly
scored the same as 42 of her fellow students
scored the same as or higher than 42 percent of her fellow students
scored the same as or higher than 58 percent of her fellow students
Which of the following provides information regarding brain function by monitoring the brain at work through metabolism of glucose?
Computed tomography (CT)
Electrooculography (EOG)
Electroencephalography (EEG)
Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)
Positron emission tomography (PET)
A person assembling a tool one week after reading the instructions can remember the first and last steps of the procedure but not the middle ones. This best illustrates which of the following?
Encoding failure
Social facilitation
Retrograde amnesia
Repression
The serial position effect
Carol Gilligan’s critique of Lawrence Kohlberg’s stages of moral development focuses primarily on
the order in which stages of moral development occur
the key events that mark the transitions between stages of moral development
the number of stages in moral development
how the course of moral development might be altered within certain cultures
differences between males and females in the course of moral development
For extinction to occur, which of the following must be true of the conditioned response (CR), the conditioned stimulus (CS), and the unconditioned stimulus (UCS) ?
The CR occurs after the CS but does not occur after other stimuli.
The CR occurs after a stimulus that is similar to the CS.
The CS and the UCS are repeatedly paired, and the CR gains strength.
The CS is repeatedly presented in the absence of the UCS, and the CR loses strength.
When the CR loses strength, a rest period is given, after which the CS again elicits the CR.
Which of the following behaviors is most closely associated with the foot-in-the-door phenomenon?
Beth continues to participate in class because she is positively reinforced.
Adam is sleeping while the rest of his classmates are working on their group project.
Sutan asks his father for $5, and when he agrees, Sutan asks him for $15 more.
James feels pressure to go to the movies with his friends even though he prefers to go bowling.
Diana feels guilty because she did not help her family clear the table after dinner.
A child who learns that spoons are tableware and then correctly calls forks and knives tableware is demonstrating
rote learning
imitation training
discrimination training
stimulus generalization
classical conditioning
Which of the following best describes the response
of members of the American Psychological
Association to ethical issues in research?
They have just begun to address such issues.
They disclaim ethical concerns regarding research.
They have developed codes of ethics for research with human participants only.
They have developed codes of ethics for research with animal subjects only.
They have developed codes of ethics for research with both human participants and animal subjects.
Lithium carbonate has been useful in some instances in the treatment of
bipolar disorder
dissociative identity disorder
autistic disorder
hypochondriasis
anorexia nervosa
Which of the following is an example of a prelinguistic event?
Telegraphic speech
Motherese
Babbling
Holophrasing
Paraphrasing
All of the following are reasons for requiring clearly specified procedures for the administration and scoring of assessment measures, such as standardized tests, EXCEPT to
allow comparisons among scores of various test takers
reduce the possible effects of extraneous variables on scores
increase the reliability and validity of the test scores
decrease the amount of time needed to administer the test
increase the objectivity of the scoring procedures used
John B. Watson is best known as the founder of
behaviorism
functionalism
rationalism
structuralism
mechanism
Photoreceptors relay visual information to the brain through which of the following cells?
Trigeminal and vestibular
Ganglion and vestibular
Bipolar and vestibular
Bipolar and Schwann
Bipolar and ganglion
Robert Rescorla’s contingency model of classical conditioning states that
conditioning occurs only when one event reliably predicts another
contiguity of stimuli is sufficient for conditioning to occur
reinforcement contingencies predict extinction
any stimulus can become conditioned when paired with an unconditioned stimulus
the only difference between the conditioned response and the unconditioned response is the stimulus used to elicit them
Which of the following types of validity is established by demonstrating that there is a correlation between scores on a test and later academic performance?
Content
Predictive
Face
Concurrent
Test-retest
Which of the following best supports the hypothesis that basic human emotions, such as sadness, are innate?
Individuals typically experience a rise in blood pressure when they are afraid or angry.
Most individuals can distinguish between expressions of different basic emotions during the sensorimotor period.
Basic emotions are understood and expressed in a similar fashion by individuals from diverse cultures.
Most individuals can identify their own emotional states from their physiological symptoms and the context of their present situation.
Infants and young animals cry when they are hungry.
In studying the behavior of five year olds in free-play situations, a cognitive psychologist would be most interested in the children’s
problem-solving strategies
toy preferences
degree of cooperative behavior
prosocial play activities
choice of playmates
Which of the following results of correlational studies implies that environment contributes to the determination of IQ?
Correlations are higher for identical twins than for fraternal twins.
Correlations are higher for children and their biological parents than for children and their adoptive parents.
Correlations are higher for parents and their children than for husbands and wives.
Correlations for two children in the same family are lower when one of the children is adopted than when both are the biological offspring of the parents.
Correlations for children and their adoptive parents are statistically significant and positive.
Developmental research on the formation of attachment indicates that a child’s secure attachment to its mother during infancy is predictive of which of the following during its toddler years?
Social rejection
Impulsive behavior
Social competence
Divergent thinking
Shyness
Hallucinations are characteristic of
fugue
clinical depression
panic attacks
psychotic disorders
personality disorders
Alfred Binet’s efforts to measure intelligence were directed at
testing the worth of various theoretical definitions
operationally defining one theory of intelligence
predicting children’s success in school
selecting workers for successful job performance
establishing the learning potential of French military recruits
Training in the construction of an anxiety hierarchy and in relaxation techniques is likely to be part of the treatment for which of the following?
Schizophrenia
Bipolar disorder
Specific phobia
Obsessive-compulsive disorder
Dissociative identity disorder
A supervisor who doubts the competence of a new employee unwittingly criticizes everything the new employee does. If the new employee consequently performs poorly, which of the following will most likely have occurred?
Latent learning
Pluralistic ignorance
A self-fulfilling prophecy
The halo effect
The Hawthorne effect
According to Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, the need to have respect for ourselves and to be valued by others is classified within the category of
physiological needs
safety needs
belongingness needs
esteem needs
self-actualization needs
Which part of the nervous system is most immediately activated by sudden fear?
Parasympathetic
Sympathetic
Neostriatum
Somatic
Cortical
Alicia has started a new and very different job but believes in her skills and ability to carry out the tasks required of her. Albert Bandura would refer to Alicia’s sense of confidence as which of the following?
Reciprocal determinism
Self-determination
Psychic determinism
Self-efficacy
Phenomenology
Stanley Schachter and Jerome Singer view emotion as resulting from
biochemical changes in the pituitary
cognitive labels of physiological changes
instinctual behavior
level of arousal
need for affiliation
The tendency to believe that another person’s behavior is caused by dispositional factors rather than by environmental factors is called
situational attribution
impression management
the fundamental attribution error
an implicit personality theory
identification
An individual who drinks alcohol daily finds it necessary to drink increasing amounts to achieve the state of well-being attained in the past. This individual is showing
withdrawal symptoms
alcohol-induced psychosis
state-dependent learning
alcohol tolerance
delirium tremens
Which of the following most accurately describes a dependent variable?
Some characteristic of research participants that is constant, such as gender
Some aspect of a participant’s response that is measured in an experiment
A factor that is manipulated by the experimenter in order to observe its effects on some other factor
A factor that can be used to predict how people in an experiment will respond
A factor that is equated for the experimental and the control group
All human languages have several basic sounds in common called
pheromones
semantic units
syntactic units
morphemes
phonemes
The sequence of shifts in the electrical charge of a neuron is called
neural integration
refraction
synaptic transmission
the action potential
differential conduction
A technique that enables a person to control physiological responses that are normally involuntary, such as level of blood pressure, is known as
general adaptation
positive reinforcement
reward training
modeling
biofeedback
Which of the following is the best interpretation of Solomon Asch’s findings, pictured above, concerning conformity in perceptual judgments?
The larger the group, the greater the conformity of group members.
The smaller the group, the greater the conformity of group members.
Conformity increases as group size increases to about four persons.
Conformity decreases as group size decreases to about four persons.
There is no relationship between group size and conformity.
Mental shortcuts or rules of thumb that help solve problems and reduce mental effort are called
heuristics
algorithms
syllogisms
propositions
concepts
The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory is used primarily to provide information about which of the following?
Achievement
Communication skills
Intelligence
Body image
Clinical disorders
Which of the following is true of the frequency distributions shown in the graphs above?
Distribution A has more variation than distributions B or C.
Distribution B has more variation than distributions A or C.
Distribution B and distribution C have the same variation.
The standard deviation of distribution A is infinite.
The standard deviation of distribution B is zero.
Which of the following is a partial reinforcement schedule that is most resistant to extinction?
Noncontingent
Shaping
Variable ratio
Fixed ratio
Fixed interval
A young child shown a nine-inch round bowl and a six-inch round bowl containing equal amounts of popcorn says he is certain the smaller bowl has more popcorn than the larger bowl. This child has yet to acquire what Jean Piaget called
object permanence
equilibrium
functional fixedness
conservation
circular reactions
Which of the following concepts provides the best explanation for why people seek to put on warmer clothing when they start to feel cold?
Set-point theory
Homeostasis
Self-serving bias
Refractory period
Assimilation
The linguistic relativity hypothesis of Benjamin Whorf suggests which of the following?
People of different cultures use similar words for common objects.
Languages with many words to describe certain phenomena lack deep structure.
The number of phonemes used in spoken language is universal across cultures.
People of cultures with few words to describe certain phenomena are more precise in their descriptions.
Speakers of different languages think differently due to the differences in their languages.
An individual diagnosed as having a somatoform disorder would be most likely to show
an irrational fear of social situations
an inability to recall important life events
a biologically unfounded loss of bodily functioning
a complete disregard for social mores
a tendency to engage in ritualistic behavior to avoid illness
“It belongs to human nature to hate those you have injured.” This belief is best explained by
cognitive dissonance theory
the two-factor theory of emotion
evolutionary psychology
the availability heuristic
drive-reduction theory
To score high on a test of creativity, a person’s answers should be
original and valuable
normative and divergent
normative and convergent
unconscious and illogical
simple and contextual
Memory for automatic activities, such as bike riding and handwriting, is known as
declarative
semantic
sensory
procedural
repressed
After discussing a topic, a group makes a decision that is more extreme than the average position of all of the group members prior to discussion. The group’s action is an example of
group consensus
group polarization
group consistency
the mere-exposure effect
diffusion of responsibility
Brain damage that leaves a person capable of understanding speech but with an impaired ability to produce speech most likely indicates injury to which of the following?
The basal ganglia
Wernicke’s area
The substantia nigra
Broca’s area
The inferior colliculi
Gender differences have most often been found in which of the following?
Aggression
Short-term memory
Auditory discrimination
Visual acuity
Pattern matching
Which of the following statements best depicts the concept of incentive theory?
Roger has not eaten all day; therefore, he daydreams about pizza.
Pam was extremely thirsty and drank two bottles of water after running two miles.
Jennifer studies hard because her parents reward her by paying $20 for each superior grade that she brings home.
Despite low grades, Fred continues to study because he is interested in the material.
Kevin says that he is constantly hungry and eats at least five meals a day to reduce his hunger.
The correlation between scores obtained on two halves of a single test yields information about the test’s
reliability
validity
frequency distribution of scores
central tendency of scores
standard error of measurement
Vance is a popular honors student who, unlike his reference group, writes his best papers sitting on his motorcycle in the basement of his college dormitory. His behavior can be considered abnormal only if abnormality is defined as
the need to rebel against authority
disinterest in the opinion of others
the perception of one’s self as different
deviation from cultural norms
the inability to work in a group
Failure to recognize that an object typically not used for a particular purpose can, in fact, serve that purpose illustrates which of the following?
Schema
Functional fixedness
Availability
Insight
Confirmation bias
