WorksheetsBarron's study guide PSYCH practice test
Total questions: 62
Worksheet time: 31mins
The Space between the dendrites of one neuron and the terminal buttons of another is the
node of Ranvier
axon
medulla
synpase
myelin sheath
Which of the following factors helps most to explain the increasing rate of obesity in the united States over the last 100 years?
the changing gene pool
the sedentary nature of modern jobs
the growth in popularity of the cities
the increase in the length of the workday
the lack of opportunities to exercise
After finishing work on a big English project, Leo's room is a mess. His parents are furious and, without letting him explain, prohibit him from using his car or his cell phone for a month. Using this information, which parenting style are Leo's parents most likely using?
authoritative
indulgent
neglectful
authoritarian
democratic
Which of the following types of approaches is used be the greatest number of clinical psychologists in the United States?
eclectic
psychodynaamic
humanistic
client-centered
systematic desensitization
The easiest and most common technique used to gather information about people' personalities Is by
administering projective tests
observing people's behavior
using brain scans
asking people to fill out self-report inventories
using free association and dream analysis
Saluja decides she wants to try hanging out with a new group of friends. She used to be on the debate team but now tries out for the spring musical. Which of Erikson's stages is she most likely to be in?
generatively versus stagnation
intimacy versus isolation
autonomy versus shame and doubt
initiative versus guilt
identity versus role confusion
Daniel is learning that five pennies spread out on his desk are the same number of coins as five pennies in a pile. According to Piaaget, how old is Daniel likely to be?
1 year
2 years
4 years
8 years
13 years
Your knowledge of skills such as how to tie your shoes or ride a bicycle is thought to be stored in which part of the brain?
hippocampus
cerebral cotex
medulla
amygdala
cerebellum
Which of the following is an opiate?
cocaine
amphetamines
heroin
nicotine
caffeine
Which structure is found in the middle ear?
stirrup
auditory nerve
cochlea
organ of Corti
pinna
Mr. Kan is making soup. After tasting it, he decides it needs more salt and slowly adds some until he can first detect that the soup is saltier than it was before. The amount of salt Mr. Kan needs to add depends on his
absolute threshold.
perceptual set.
difference threshold
olfactory sensitivity
gate-control theory
Which of the following is the best example of basic research?
A first grade teacher tests two different methods of teaching reading.
A psychologist investigates how effective a new therapeutic approach is for treating phobias.
A campaign manager commissions a poll to see how popular her candidate's stand on various issues is.
A developmental psychologist explores how children's use of language changes as they age.
A social psychologist studies how charities can convince people to donate more generously.
Three-year-old Emma went to see a New York Yankees game in Yankee Stadium. From her seat in the bleachers, the players looked like tiny men, but as she walked toward the field, the players seemed to grow in size, as if by magic. Emma's belief that the men grew larger is best explained by
damage to her fovea.
place theory.
incomprehension about how to use the Gestalt principles of perception.
her inability to use binocular cues.
the fact that she is still developing size constancy.
Infants teach their parents to hold them a lot by crying whenever they are put down. When they are picked up, the babies stop crying. The parents are learning to pick up their babies via
insight learning.
positive reinforcement.
negative reinforcement.
latent learning.
punishment
Which of the following sentences illustrates overgeneralization?
Toby is the fastest boy in the world.
Homey don't play that game
Dani goed to the store.
Only human beings have the ability to used language.
All dogs have fur.
What theory suggests that using the term "girls" to refer to women might affect the way those people think about women?
the linguistic relativity hypothesis
social learning theory
the nativist theory of language
signal detection theory
arousal theory
Which of the following early psychologists used introspection to study consciousness?
John Watson
Sigmund Freud
Ivan Pavlov
Max Wertheimer
Wilhelm Wundt
Which of the following seems to be least heritable?
hair color
heart disease
religious beliefs
conscientiousness
extraversion
Before you see a question on the AP Psychology exam, it is usually pretested on a group of college students taking an introductory course in psychology. This group of people are referred to as the
standardization sample.
validity testers.
test population.
basis for comparison.
trial group.
Which of the following is a somatoform disorder?
narcissistic personality disorder
masochism
generalized anxiety disorder
psychogenic amnesia
hypochondriasis
A man calls Janie soliciting money for a charity that fights AIDS. He asks if they can count on Janie to contribute $100. Having never contributed to this charity before, Janie is taken aback by the amount and refuses. The representative of the charity then asks if Janie would be willing to make a $25 donation. What technique is the man representing the charity using?
door-in-the-face
lowballing
norms ofreciprocity
self-fulfilling prophecy
foot-in-the-door
ECT is most likely to be used to treat
schizophrenia
phobias
depression
antisocial personality disorder
ECT is no longer an accepted medical treatment.
Which of the following types of therapies would be classified as insight therapy?
psychopharmacology
psychosurgery
flooding
token economy
client-centered therapy
Keela's car breaks down. A woman driving by would be most likely to help her
if the weather is bad.
if they are on a highly trafficked road
if the driver is a highly religious woman.
if they are on a desolate country road.
if the driver is in a bad mood and can therefore sympathize with Keela.
Which of the following is a common symptom of depression?
eating more than usual
working harder than usual
abandoning old hobbies and picking up new ones
making a new group of friends
feeling closer to one's family
Which of the following people demonstrates the most achievement motivation?
Joey is a carpenter who is anxious to find a life partner with whom to settle down
Paula wants to make enough money as a doctor that she can work part-time and still support herself comfortably.
Nino works in an office-supply store. He frequently volunteers to come in early or stay late and prides himself on being a good worker.
Luther is in high school. He studies constantly because his parents give him $10 for every A he brings home, and Luther is saving up to buy a car.
Rula works 80 hours a week at a corporate law firm she hates because she needs to support her extravagant lifestyle.
In the past when Nuara's computer wouldn't print, she remedied the situation by restarting the computer. One day Nuara's printer came unplugged, but instead of checking the connections, she repeatedly restarted the computer. Nuara's behavior can best be explained by
proactive interference
functional fixedness
belief bias
framing
mental set
During a typical night of sleep, the average adult spends the most time in
stage 1.
stage 2
stage 3.
stage 4
REM
Paul stared out the window as the train he was on raced through the countryside. He noticed that the telephone poles near the tracks seemed to fly by while the houses in the distance seemed to move slowly. This apparent difference in speed of movement is known as
texture gradient
motion parallax
stroboscopic motion
the phi phenomenon
relative speed
Famaz randomly selected 50 new mothers to interview out of the 362 new mothers who gave birth in Random City's Central Hospital during the summer of 2003. What is Famaz's population?
new mothers in Random City hospitals
new mothers in urban areas in the United States
new mothers throughout the world
the 50 new mothers with whom Famaz speaks
the 362 new mothers at Central Hospital that summer
Sabrina finds a strong, negative correlation between hours spent meditating and reported stress levels. Her findings indicate that
if a person meditates daily, she or he will not experience any stress.
people who meditate a lot tend to have higher stress levels.
meditation lowers stress levels in humans.
people with low stress levels meditate more than people with high stress levels
the failure to meditate is a major cause of stress in humans
In the early twentieth century in the United States which of the following perspectives was most prominent?
biological
behaviorist
psychoanalytic
gestalt
cognitive
In which of the following groups would you expect to find the greatest standard deviation in IQ scores?
the graduating class of Princeton University
a special program for children who suffer from severe mental retardation
elementary school students in a large, public school system
the entering class of an elite preparatory school in India
girls who attend a small, single-sex, private high school.
Which part of the brain is most important in regulating an animal's sex drive?
amygdala
hypothalamus
pituitary gland
medulla
hippocampus
After staring at a painting of a red and yellow parrot in a birdcage for a full minute, Saju turns his gaze to an empty birdcage painted on a white wall. What will he see in the empty cage?
the red and yellow parrot
a red and green parrot
a green and blue parrot
a blue and yellow parrot
nothing, just an empty cage
In Tolman 's experiment on latent learning, latent learning was shown by
the rats whose performance declined steadily throughout the trials.
the rats whose progress improved
steadily throughout the trials.
the rats whose progress improved markedly once a reward was introduced.
the rats whose progress declined markedly once a reward was introduced.
the rats whose progress never improved significantly.
Which statement about memory is true?
People can correctly gauge the accuracy of their memories.
Children initially have accurate memories of their first few years of life but forget them as they age.
Older people are worse at all types of
memory tasks than are younger people.
Memories are like stored video images.
There is no one place in the brain where
memories are stored.
Kelsey is an attractive twenty-something with many friends. She is struggling to make a name for herself in Hollywood as an actress. Although she gets enough work to support herself, she does mostly commercials and small roles in minor films. Abraham Maslow would say that Kelsey is still striving to meet her need
to self-actualize
for safety.
for esteem.
to belong
for power.
When a newborn baby is sleeping, which reflex will be elicited by a sudden noise or touch?
Babinski
plantar
rooting
Moro
grasping
Kate, a newborn baby, probably most likes to look at
her cousin's toy robot.
pastel colorea blocks
her stuffed sheep
cartoons on television
her own face
Roscoe works for a nasty and abusive boss
but tells everyone what a wonderful woman
she is. Psychoanalysts would say that Roscoe
is using which of the following defense
mechanisms?
displacement
reaction formation
projection
sublimation
intellectualization
Research suggests that genetic and other biological factors play the greatest role in causing
simple phobias
agoraphobia
dissociative identity disorder
bipolar disorder
conversion disorder
Dr. Lupin challenges her depressed clients' beliefs that their lives are hopeless and without purpose and gives them homework assignments in which the clients are required to engage in the activities that used to bring them joy. What type of therapy is Dr. Lupin using?
existential
rational emotive behavior therapy
Gestalt
psychoanalytic
modeling
Milgram's obedience studies showed that
members of minority groups were better
able to stand up to authority figures than
Caucasians.
absolute obedience was best achieved under hypnosis
most people would obey an authority figure's order to harm a stranger.
people would follow orders up to a point but almost all refused to do something illegal or immoral.
women are far more obedient than men are.
Which of the following is one of the main advantages of group therapy?
The client develops lasting friendships with all the other members of the group.
The success rate of group therapy is higher.
It reduces the financial burden of therapy.
Group therapists generally have more years of training than individual therapists.
The therapy usually takes less time.
. Tom is a Type A individual who is seeking short-term, focused psychotherapy to help him make his lifestyle healthier. With what kind of therapist do you think Tom would be happiest?
behaviorist
psychodynamic
sociocultural
humanistic
somatic
Which of the following is an example of hostile aggression?
Billy shoots a deer in order to feed his family supper.
Joe beats up a man at an ATM because he wants to steal his money.
Lula screams at her cat to scare him off the kitchen table.
Tutti hits her younger brother because she's angry at her mother.
Mike pushes another man out of the way to grab the shirt he wants off the sale rack.
According to Howard Gardner, which of the following is a type of intelligence?
naturalist
practical
experiential
fluid
general
Dr. Kraysin rejects the Big Five model of personality because she believes that people are so different it is impossible to describe them all with a common set of traits. What kind of trait theory would Dr. Kraysin favor?
cognitive
psychodynamic
idiographic
sociocultural
individual
Supporters of attachment parenting argue that babies like to be held all the time and that parents should seek to maximize the amount of physical contact they have with their babies. Such research is most in line with the findings of
Gilligan
Piaget
Harlow
Freud
Kohlberg
Isabella fondly remembers the first time she went skydiving. This information is an example of
declarative memory
semantic memory
implicit memory.
eidetic memory
procedural memory.
According to the James-Lange theory of emotion
a specific physiological reaction to an
event triggers the recognition of a
specific emotion.
the thalamus is the key part of the brain
involved in emotion.
an initial emotion leads to the expression of the antagonistic emotion and that second emotion grows stronger with repetition
emotions are expressed the same way across different cultures.
different emotions result from different interpretations of similar physiological responses.
Which of the following is an example of observational learning?
A girl learns to howl by watching wolves on a television show.
A parrot learns to say "mama" by listening to its owner.
A student learns to type through the process of trial and error
A kitten learns to chase birds by copying its mother.
A boy learns to make his bed after his parents reward him with money.
Which of the following is an example of discrimination?
Jessica continues to talk during class even after being publicly reprimanded by the teacher.
Melissa has learned to dig for earthworms only after it rains.
Franz always bounces the basketball three times before shooting a free throw.
After his father yells at and punishes him, Helmut winces when he hears a man yell on television.
Mr. Black wants his students to call him by his first name and not to raise their hands. Weeks into the semester after having given up these habits, some of Mr. Black's students still occasionally raise their hands.
In a normal distribution,
95 percent of the scores fall within one standard deviation of the mean.
everyone scores within three standard deviations of the mean.
the mean is always greater than the
median.
the mean, median, and mode are all equal.
the standard deviation is always less than 1.0.
The part of the brain most responsible for making decisions is the
thalamus
amygdala
hippocampus
prefrontal cortex.
corpus callosum.
Tiger lillies appear orange because they
reflect orange light.
absorb orange light.
transduce orange light
reflect red light and absorb yellow light
reflect yellow light and absorb red light.
Your knowledge of who the first president of the United States was is usually found in which level of your consciousness?
conscious
nonconscious
preconscious
subconscious
unconscious
Banu scored 130 on the WISC. What is his z score and approximately what percentile is he in?
-2,2nd
-2, 16th
0, 50th
2, 90th
2, 98th
Dr. Soo is a psychiatrist who wants to prescribe a drug for one of her patients who is suffering from GAD. Which of the following drugs is she most likely to prescribe?
tricyclic antidepressants
Thorazine
Haldol
lithium
Valium
One possible explanation for group polarization is
out-group bias.
self-fulfilling prophecy.
self-serving bias
the fundamental attribution error
diffusion of responsibility.
Which is typical of a positively skewed distribution?
The mean is higher than the median.
The mean is lower than the median
There are more high scores than low scores.
The mode is higher than the median but lower than the mean.
The mode is lower than the median but higher than the mean.
