WorksheetsPractice GRE Psychology Subject Test
Total questions: 61
Worksheet time: 33mins
The ability of a postsynaptic neuron to respond to the presence of a particular neurotransmitter that is released from a neighboring presynaptic neuron is dependent on which of the following conditions?
The presence of receptors on the postsynaptic neuron that have an affinity for that particular neurotransmitter
The amount of myelin on the presynaptic neuron
The number of mitochondria in the postsynaptic neuron
The length of the synaptic cleft
Critics have argued that projective tests are too
Subjective
Objective
Reliable
Standardized
Organizing the string of letters B-F-J-T-A-V-K-C into JFK-TV-CAB is an example of
Chunking
Priming
Encoding failure
Retrieval cue
When persuasive communications follow the peripheral route, they focus on which of the following?
Emotions
Statistics
Logical arguments
Factual evidence
Consider the sentence "The dishwasher is running." Which of the following is true?
It can have more than one deep structure.
It is an example of passive voice.
It contains a relative clause.
It is a question.
According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5), children with separation anxiety disorder often experience which of the following symptoms in addition to excessive fear or anxiety over separation from attachment figures?
Persistent desire to develop relationships with adults other than those who serve as major attachment figures
Recurrent excessive distress when anticipating or experiencing separation from home or major attachment figures
Persistent and excessive worry about losing major attachment figures or about possible harm to them
Repeated complaints of physical symptoms (such as headaches, stomachaches, nausea, or vomiting) when separation from major attachment figures occurs or is anticipated
Patients with bilateral damage to the hippocampal formation are tested on motor learning tasks such as the Tower of Hanoi. Studies show that the patients improve their performance with repeated exposures. When asked whether they have ever seen the task, even after numerous test sessions with it, they typically report not having seen it before. Such results have led to which of the following conclusions?
Although procedural memory may not rely on normal hippocampal functioning, declarative memory does.
Both procedural and declarative memory rely equally on hippocampal functioning.
Procedural memory is impaired in patients with hippocampal damage, but declarative memory is not.
Neither procedural nor declarative memory is affected by hippocampal damage.
Endorphin
Endorphin
Serotonin
Adrenaline
Dopamine
Which of the following is chemically similar to opiates, has the ability to reduce pain, and is blocked by the action of naloxone?
Endorphins
Insulin
Adrenaline
Serotonin
When stress is prolonged, the most likely result is ________.
Generalized weakening of the immune system
Increased muscle strength
Improved memory retention
Enhanced digestion
The bradykinesia, cogwheel rigidity, and tremors that characterize Parkinson's disease are a result of the degeneration of dopaminergic cells in the ________.
Substantia nigra
Cerebellum
Hippocampus
Thalamus
Which of the following best characterizes an infant's object concept at six months of age?
The infant understands objects to be solid bounded entities that take up space and move on continuous paths
The infant believes objects disappear when out of sight and cannot exist independently
The infant thinks objects can pass through each other without resistance
The infant perceives objects as flat images without depth or substance
A 40-item vocabulary test was administered to a group of students. A second, similar test of vocabulary terms was administered to this same group of students approximately one week later. The researcher reported that the correlation between these two tests was r=.90. What type of reliability is represented in this example?
Inter-rater
Test-retest
Internal consistency
Split-half
A researcher was interested in whether or not jazz vocals and opera influence men's and women's emotional states. She hypothesized that these types of music influence men and women differently. In a study investigating this hypothesis, 40 men and 40 women heard a jazz piece, and 40 men and 40 women heard an operatic piece. The jazz piece was sung by a man, and the operatic piece was sung by a woman. Afterward, participants rated themselves on an inventory measuring mood.
Men who heard the jazz piece and women who heard the operatic piece scored higher on the mood inventory than those in the other two groups
All participants scored equally on the mood inventory regardless of music type or gender
Women who heard the jazz piece and men who heard the operatic piece scored higher on the mood inventory than those in the other two groups
Only men who heard the operatic piece scored higher on the mood inventory than all other groups
Which of the following describes the pattern of findings displayed in the graph?
Men respond more positively to jazz, women respond more positively to opera.
Women respond more positively to jazz, men respond more positively to opera.
Both men and women respond equally to jazz and opera.
There is no significant difference in responses between men and women.
A researcher was interested in whether or not jazz vocals and opera influence men's and women's emotional states. She hypothesized that these types of music influence men and women differently. In a study investigating this hypothesis, 40 men and 40 women heard a jazz piece, and 40 men and 40 women heard an operatic piece. The jazz piece was sung by a man, and the operatic piece was sung by a woman. Afterward, participants rated themselves on an inventory measuring emotional state. Higher scores on the inventory indicate positive mood. The researcher concludes from her study that jazz music positively changes men's moods and operatic music positively changes women's moods. Which of the following invalidates that conclusion?
Which of the following is the most serious problem with the methodology of this research?
Lack of a control group
Small sample size
Inadequate data collection methods
Biased selection of participants
The preference for a loosely knit social framework in which individuals are responsible only for the care of their children and themselves is known as _______.
Individualism
Collectivism
Altruism
Communitarianism
Over many trials a puff of air aimed at JoAnne's eye is paired with a loud noise and a subtle smell. Afterward, it is very likely that JoAnne's conditioned eye blink will be under the control of the loud noise and not the subtle smell. This phenomenon is an example of _______.
Overshadowing
Generalization
Extinction
Blocking
Clinical: The idea that people cope with stress by moving toward people, away from people, or against people is most consistent with the views of _________
Karen Horney
Sigmund Freud
Carl Jung
Alfred Adler
Cognitive Psychology: Language; Speech Perception and Processing: Which of the following is the best example of the categorical perception of human speech?
When a sound is presented that is intermediate between the phonemes /b/ and /p/, listeners report that they heard either a distinct /b/ or a distinct /p/.
Listeners are able to identify all subtle variations between the sounds /b/ and /p/ as unique phonemes.
People can easily mimic any sound they hear, regardless of whether it is a speech sound in their native language.
Listeners perceive gradual changes in pitch as distinct changes in meaning.
Developmental: Alexander Thomas and Stella Chess described three categories of infants: easy, difficult, and slow to warm up. These are categories of _________?
Temperament
Attachment
Cognition
Reflexes
Developmental: Which of the following types of cognitive abilities is the LEAST likely to show a decline in late life?
Semantic memory
Processing speed
Episodic memory
Working memory
Charles Scott Sherrington proposed that rapid stimulation of a specific synapse is likely to produce a cumulative effect in the postsynaptic cell because of _________?
temporal summation
spatial inhibition
chemical diffusion
neural adaptation
Clinical: _________
Autism spectrum disorder
Diabetes mellitus
Hypertension
Asthma
Which of the following is an atypical developmental pattern characterized by stereotyped motor responses and poor communication skills?
Autism
Dyslexia
ADHD
Down Syndrome
The sharing of information about oneself is referred to as
Self-disclosure
Self-actualization
Self-esteem
Self-regulation
Research on children's social behavior shows that relative to young adolescent boys, young adolescent girls exhibit more of which type of aggression?
Relational
Physical
Verbal
Instrumental
"I runned to the car" is an example of
Overregularization
Passive voice
Subject-verb agreement
Reduplication
The visual pathway that tells us what we are looking at is called the
Ventral stream
Dorsal stream
Optic chiasm
Retinal ganglion pathway
Which theorist revised Sigmund Freud's stages of development, replacing Freud's psychosexual stages with psychosocial stages?
Erik Erikson
Jean Piaget
B.F. Skinner
Carl Jung
Developmental: A child has just developed the ability to lie with the intention of deceiving another person. This new ability is probably based most directly on a change in the child's _______.
Knowledge about mental representations
Physical coordination
Vocabulary size
Attachment to caregivers
The standard deviation of a sample of test scores is a measure of the _______.
Variability of individual scores
Average of the scores
Sum of the scores
Highest score
Biological: Rapid eye movements are most closely associated with which of the following?
Dreaming
Eating
Exercising
Reading
An investigator interested in the development of children's attitudes toward the police assessed and compared the attitudes of 250 eight year olds, 240 twelve year olds, and 245 sixteen year olds. She matched the three groups with regard to gender and socioeconomic background. The investigator's research design is best characterized as which of the following?
Cross-sectional
Longitudinal
Experimental
Case study
According to Sigmund Freud, a child who grabs food from another child because of hunger is driven by _________
the Id
the Ego
the Superego
the Conscious
All of the following statements about psychodynamic theorists are correct: - Karen Horney stressed the importance of social relationships - Alfred Adler claimed the childhood feelings of inferiority lead to striving for superiority - Erik Erikson described conflicts at different stages of development - Sigmund Freud stressed the interaction of the id, the ego, and the superego except _________
Carl Jung identified two components of the unconscious: the preconscious and the formal unconscious
Carl Jung proposed the concepts of the collective unconscious and archetypes
Carl Jung emphasized the role of individuation in personality development
Carl Jung believed in the importance of dream analysis for understanding the unconscious
Juanita's classmates enjoy being with her because she is always sociable, easygoing, and lively. On Eysenck's basic personality dimensions, she would be classified as _________.
Extroverted stable
Introverted unstable
Introverted stable
Extroverted unstable
Annette is looking for a psychotherapist whose clinical work is rooted in object relations theory. The best match for Annette would be a therapist who emphasizes _________.
Early life relationships
Cognitive restructuring
Behavioral conditioning
Genetic predispositions
An athlete's performance may improve or worsen according to _________
The Yerkes-Dodson Law
Newton's First Law
The Law of Diminishing Returns
The Principle of Overload
A developmental psychologist is interested in conducting a study on children's gender perceptions. The psychologist recruits children who are either 5 years of age, 8 years of age, or 10 years of age to complete the study. Which of the following best describes the psychologist's research design?
Cross-sectional
Longitudinal
Experimental
Case study
Piaget's stages of cognitive development (in order) are ________
Sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, formal operational
Preoperational, sensorimotor, concrete operational, formal operational
Concrete operational, preoperational, sensorimotor, formal operational
Formal operational, concrete operational, preoperational, sensorimotor
The term 'vicarious reinforcement' was coined by ________
Albert Bandura
B.F. Skinner
Ivan Pavlov
John Watson
Which of the following Gestalt laws refers to perceptual organization as being as "good" as possible?
Pragnanz
Proximity
Similarity
Closure
At dinner, Karen's brother spills his drink on the table; Karen concludes this happened because he is clumsy and careless. This is an example of the ________
Fundamental Attribution Error
Self-Serving Bias
Cognitive Dissonance
Confirmation Bias
The neurotransmitter linked to Alzheimer's disease is:
Dopamine
Serotonin
Acetylcholine
GABA
Which of the following is NOT related to the psychological understanding of conformity, obedience, and compliance?
Social influence
Peer pressure
Classical conditioning
Group norms
The "strange situation" was an experiment devised to examine the quality of the parent-child attachment relationship by which researcher?
Sigmund Freud
Mary Ainsworth
John Bowlby
Jean Piaget
Which well-known critic of trait theory argued that behavior is largely determined by characteristics of the situation rather than by those of the person?
Walter Mischel
Sigmund Freud
Gordon Allport
Raymond Cattell
Which of the following mental disorders is characterized by pervasive instability in interpersonal behavior, mood, and self-image; frequently intense and unstable relationships?
Borderline Personality Disorder
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
Schizophrenia
Bipolar Disorder
In a longitudinal study of weight loss, data is collected to assess weight change over time based on two different aerobics regimens: yoga and jogging. Which of the following research designs is best suited for this type of study?
Between-subjects design
Case study design
Cross-sectional design
Single-subject design
To assess the validity of an intelligence test that is used to select individuals for admission to a college, a researcher collects the test takers' college grade point averages a year later. This is an example of what type of validity?
Predictive
Content
Construct
Concurrent
According to Carl Jung, major archetypes include all of the following EXCEPT the
(a)
The founder of operant conditioning is
B.F. Skinner
Ivan Pavlov
John Watson
Edward Thorndike
A group of students enrolled in a psychology course are placed in a room and asked to perform a group communication task. The experiment concludes that the students' increased performance score on the task is partly due to their professor's presence. This is an example of
Hawthorne Effect
Placebo Effect
Confirmation Bias
Social Loafing
What is epilepsy?
A neurological disorder marked by sudden recurrent episodes of sensory disturbance, loss of consciousness, or convulsions, associated with abnormal electrical activity in the brain.
A respiratory disorder characterized by chronic coughing and wheezing.
A digestive disorder that causes stomach pain and indigestion.
A cardiovascular condition resulting in high blood pressure and chest pain.
The fovea, the middle section of the retina, contains only which type of photoreceptor cell?
Cones
Rods
Bipolar cells
Ganglion cells
Episodic memory and semantic memory are two types of ________.
Declarative memory
Procedural memory
Sensory memory
Working memory
The Zeigarnik effect refers to increased recall memory in which of the following contexts?
Incomplete tasks versus completed tasks
Tasks performed in groups versus alone
Tasks with external rewards versus intrinsic motivation
Tasks learned in the morning versus at night
Which of the following is not an important determinant when considering the effects of modeling on learning?
The sex of the model
The status of the model
The similarity between the model and the observer
The consequences of the model's behavior
The period in which a female of the species is sexually receptive is known as ________.
Estrus
Gestation
Lactation
Anestrus
