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AP Psychology premock

Total questions: 67

Worksheet time: 51mins

Name
Class
Date
1.

Dr. Belzer documented the behaviors of parents with their children at a local restaurant. She looked for specific examples of permissive, authoritarian, and authoritative parenting styles.

Which of the following best describes the method of research used by Dr. Belzer?

a)

Experiment

b)

Case Study

c)

Meta-analysis

d)

Naturalistic Observation

2.

A researcher noticed that Ryan, a young child, learned to write his name better when he was given the opportunity to respond to people around him. Ryan appeared to learn the most when more experienced people assisted him.

Which of the following concepts best describes this pattern of development?

a)

Zone of proximal development

b)

Egocentrism

c)

Autonomy

d)

Object permanence

3.

Yun was learning English as an adult. She found that she had trouble with some of the sounds in English because those sounds were not part of her native Chinese.

The difficulty she was having involved

a)

phonemes

b)

morphemes

c)

syntax

d)

semantics

4.

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

a)

object permanence

b)

equilibrium

c)

functional fixedness

d)

conservation

5.

The claim that a whole is different from the sum of its parts is central to which of the following schools of thought?

a)

Connectionism

b)

Functionalism

c)

Gestalt psychology

d)

Structuralism

6.

Dr. Sanjay conducted a study to determine whether eating breakfast affects academic performance. At the beginning of the week, he gathered survey data from students in his third-grade class about whether they ate breakfast. The next day, Dr. Sanjay showed the students ten new vocabulary words. Three days later, he administered a test to the students to measure their word recall. After analyzing the data, he claimed that eating breakfast improves the ability to recall new words.

Which of the following statements best explains why this is a false claim?

a)

Dr. Sanjay did not obtain informed consent from the parents or guardians of the students.

b)

Dr. Sanjay needed to confirm that the students told the truth about what they ate.

c)

Dr. Sanjay cannot make cause-and-effect claims from correlational data.

d)

Dr. Sanjay needed to wait more than three days to measure word recall.

7.

Professor Whitmore conducted research to examine changes in cognitive development across the life span. He recruited 400 participants and then grouped them by age. The study included 20-year-olds, 40-year-olds, 60-year-olds, and 80-year olds (100 in each group). Each group in the study took several different tests. Some of the tests were fact-based and drew upon knowledge from several different areas. Other tests required participants to solve new problems as quickly as they could

Dr. Whitmore’s research design is best classified as which of the following?

a)

Longitudinal

b)

Cross-sectional

c)

Experimental

d)

Case study

8.

Based upon research on fluid intelligence, which of the following is a likely hypothesis for Dr. Whitmore’s study?

a)

The 80-year-old cohort will likely outperform the 20-year-old cohort on all cognitive measures.

b)

The 40-year-old cohort will likely perform the lowest on the section of the test where participants are solving new problems quickly.

c)

The 60-year-old cohort will likely perform better than all other groups on tests of factual knowledge.

d)

The 20-year-old cohort will likely outperform all other groups on the tests that involve solving new problems quickly.

9.

This student is most clearly exhibiting which of the following?

a)

Hindsight bias

b)

Confirmation bias

c)

Overconfidence

d)

Preoperational thinking

10.

Which of the following is true about the blind spot in the eye?

a)

It occurs where the optic nerve leaves the eye.

b)

It is caused by an excess of bipolar cells in the retina.

c)

It is most apparent in low levels of illumination.

d)

It is stimulated only by high levels of illumination.

11.

Which theory of motivation is most likely to suggest that a younger woman would be attracted to an older man because of his greater ability to provide for her?

a)

Evolutionary

b)

Hierarchy of needs

c)

Instinct

d)

Drive-reduction

12.

Which of the following theories most accurately explains pitch perception?

a)

II only

b)

I and II only

c)

II and III only

d)

I, II, and III

13.

Which of the following types of test is designed to measure an individual's knowledge of a subject?

a)

Achievement

b)

Aptitude

c)

Projective

d)

Interest inventory

14.

Which of the following supports the opponent-process theory of color vision?

a)

Color constancy

b)

Feature detection

c)

Afterimages

d)

Elaborative processing

15.

Which of the following statements describes the Flynn effect?

a)

Intelligence quotient (IQ) scores in the United States were higher in 2003 than in 1993.

b)

Children who attend Head Start programs show short-term gains in IQ scores.

c)

There is no statistically significant relationship between IQ scores and creativity.

d)

People may earn higher scores when they are told the test is a personality assessment rather than an intelligence test.

16.

Which of the following statements about the perception of taste is true?

a)

Infants are not able to perceive taste differences until they are at least twelve months old.

b)

Older adults frequently experience decreases in the sense of smell that make it more difficult to perceive the flavor of food.

c)

The basilar membrane is responsible for sending messages about tastes from the tongue to the brain.

d)

The five primary taste qualities are spicy, sour, salty, bitter, and sweet.

17.

Which of the following have been shown to have a positive correlation?

a)

Age and REM sleep

b)

Stress and health

c)

Self-esteem and depression

d)

Perceived lack of control and learned helplessness

18.

Which of the following would most likely result from an injury to the medulla?

a)

Receptive aphasia that makes it difficult to understand what other people are saying

b)

Retrograde amnesia that destroys previously established memories

c)

A problem regulating hunger

d)

A life-threatening disruption of heartbeat and breathing

19.

Which of the following concepts refers to the structure and organization of a sentence?

a)

Phoneme

b)

Morpheme

c)

Syntax

d)

Semantics

20.

Which of the following statements is true of behaviorism?

a)

It was formulated to account for cognitive development.

b)

It is rooted in Sigmund Freud's view of the importance of early experiences.

c)

It focuses on the development of thought processes and knowledge.

d)

It holds that development is largely a product of learning.

21.

Which of the following is NOT a product of learning?

a)

Squinting in bright light

b)

Doing chores in order to receive money

c)

Getting acclimated to the frequent sound of trains going past one’s house

d)

Becoming afraid of dogs after being bitten by a dog

22.

Which of the following neurotransmitters has been most associated with major depressive disorder?

a)

Acetylcholine

b)

Dopamine

c)

Serotonin

d)

Gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA)

23.

Which of the following research methods is being used if the same subjects are tested at two, four, and six years of age?

a)

Longitudinal

b)

Cross-sectional

c)

Correlational

d)

Projective

24.

Which of the following measures of the post-high school plans data can be precisely located on the graph of a skewed distribution without doing any calculations?

a)

Mode

b)

Median

c)

Mean

d)

Standard deviation

25.

Which of the following is true of the reticular activating system?

a)

It is the major system in the brain for controlling emotions

b)

It functions primarily in the control of motor responses

c)

It regulates levels of arousal.

d)

It controls the uptake of pituitary hormones.

26.

Which of the following is true of the reticular activating system?

a)

It is the major system in the brain for controlling emotions.

b)

It functions primarily in the control of motor responses.

c)

It regulates levels of arousal.

d)

It controls the uptake of pituitary hormones.

27.

Which of the following is true of a neuron in the resting state?

a)

The inside of the cell membrane is negative compared to the outside.

b)

The outside of the cell membrane is negative compared to the inside.

c)

The charge of the neuron is equal inside and outside of the cell membrane.

d)

The neuron is not polarized.

28.

Which of the following is true of how the human eye detects the color red?

a)

It relies on only cones.

b)

It relies on only rods.

c)

It relies on both rods and cones.

d)

It occurs at the level of the pupil.

29.

Which of the following is the best example of fluid intelligence?

a)

Reciting the names of all the continents in the world without looking at a map

b)

Using cubes to figure out the solution to a previously unseen puzzle

c)

Giving an adequate definition of a difficult word

d)

Recognizing a piece of classical music

30.

Which of the following is the best example of the cognitive process Jean Piaget called assimilation?

a)

When her father cuts her single slice of pizza into three pieces, Megan thinks she has more than her sister, who has a single slice.

b)

When her mother leaves the room, Lillian continues playing with toys without becoming anxious.

c)

Having learned that his family pet is a dog, William sees a neighbor’s cat and says, “Dog!”

d)

David, who previously called all animals “doggies,” sees a horse and says, “Horse!”

31.

Which of the following is an example of metacognition?

a)

Recognizing the faces of people after meeting them once

b)

Solving a complex problem in a slow, deliberate way

c)

Understanding the role of various parts of the brain in memory

d)

Knowing the effectiveness of different strategies for learning statistical formulas

32.

Which of the following types of intelligence would be most important in answering trivia questions?

a)

Fluid

b)

Crystallized

c)

Creative

d)

Practical

33.

Which of the following describes the different emotional dispositions of infants?

a)

Imprinting

b)

Temperament

c)

Mental set

d)

Attachment

34.

Which of the following sets of concepts is central to social learning theory?

a)

Observation, imitation, and modeling

b)

Fixed interval, variable interval, and fixed ratio

c)

Generalization, spontaneous recovery, and discrimination

d)

Acquisition, extinction, and counter-conditioning

35.

Which of the following is the most appropriate criterion for evaluating the predictive validity of an intelligence test?

a)

Intelligence quotient

b)

Mental age

c)

Scholastic aptitude

d)

School grades

36.

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?

a)

Content

b)

Predictive

c)

Concurrent

d)

Test-retest

37.

Based on the graph, which schedule of reinforcement would a parent choose to create the fastest rate of learning in their child?

a)

Variable Ratio

b)

Variable Interval

c)

Fixed Interval

d)

Fixed Ratio

38.

The dependent variable in the experiment is the

a)

amount of aggressive behavior exhibited by the children

b)

amount of time that each child spent interacting with the other children

c)

group in which each child was originally placed

d)

violent cartoon

39.

The control group in the experiment is the group that

a)

the researchers thought would be most aggressive

b)

performed the larger number of aggressive acts

c)

watched the violent cartoon

d)

watched the nonviolent cartoon

40.

When Bram exhibits inappropriate behavior, his parents use time‑outs, during which he has to sit at a plain desk without toys. This approach to decreasing inappropriate behavior utilizes the concept of

a)

negative reinforcement

b)

intermittent reinforcement

c)

positive punishment

d)

negative punishment

41.

Tina’s mother often entertains Tina by bouncing a bunny puppet back and forth along the side of Tina’s crib. Initially, Tina pays close attention to the puppet but after a while, she begins to ignore it and continues doing what she was doing before the puppet appeared. Which of the following psychological concepts best explains Tina’s change in behavior?

a)

Attachment

b)

Discrimination

c)

Accommodation

d)

Habituation

42.

Tina is reading an important letter when she accidentally splashes water on the paper. The water has smudged a few words, but she is still able to understand what the letter says. This can be explained by

a)

top-down processing

b)

bottom-up processing

c)

retinal disparity

d)

color constancy

43.

Which of the following is an example of the tip-of-the-tongue effect?

a)

Marcus used to use words he knew were bad because his parents would pay attention to him whenever he did. When his parents learned to stop giving him attention in response to the bad words, he stopped using them for a few months. A few months later, though, he suddenly started using the bad words again.

b)

Emma is telling her friend what she did over summer vacation when she discovers she cannot think of a specific word that she would like to say. She stops telling the story, because she has the distinct feeling that she is about to be able to think of the word if she waits just a moment.

c)

After listening to a long list of words, Peter remembers the words that occurred near the end of the list more than the ones he heard earlier in the list.

d)

When watching a video of a mouth saying the word “bag” while the word “gag” is played over speakers, Charlotte hears a word that sounds somewhere between the two words.

44.

To stop his uncle’s constant requests, Jimmy takes out the garbage. This makes him more likely to take out the garbage in the future. Jimmy’s behavior is being controlled by which of the following types of reinforcement?

a)

Continuous

b)

Positive

c)

Negative

d)

Vicarious

45.

People who have sustained damage to the amygdala are most likely to demonstrate

a)

poor language comprehension

b)

problems regulating blood pressure

c)

a diminished capacity for fear

d)

left-right confusion

46.

An instructor conducted an experiment to determine the effects of two different methods of encoding on the amount students learned in introductory psychology. The results showed that the average amount learned by the group using one encoding method was greater than the average amount learned by the group using the other encoding method. However, the difference was not statistically significant. Which of the following is the most appropriate conclusion to be drawn?

a)

The group of students attaining the higher mean score had studied more than the other group.

b)

The better study method will have different effects for students of varying levels of ability.

c)

There is a positive correlation between the results of the two methods.

d)

There is a possibility that the difference between the two groups occurred by chance.

47.

Tim can no longer create new memories as a result of an accident. Tim is experiencing which of the following types of amnesia?

a)

Anterograde

b)

Retrograde

c)

Dissociative

d)

Source

48.

In this scenario, Emily’s behavior when she was first scratched is best labeled as which of the following?

a)

Unconditioned stimulus (UCS)

b)

Conditioned stimulus (CS)

c)

Unconditioned response (UCR)

d)

Conditioned response (CR)

49.

Which of the following describes the measurement instrument that Dr. Abrams’ patients used to report their anxiety?

Dr. Abrams treats patients with anxiety by using a form of counterconditioning called exposure therapy. To test the effectiveness of this technique, Dr. Abrams had each patient report their level of anxiety while repeatedly exposing each person to an anxiety-inducing situation for one hour using a virtual reality headset. Patients rated their anxiety from 0-8, with 0 being no anxiety to 8 being extreme anxiety. The results are presented in the graph.

a)

Standard Deviation

b)

Correlation Coefficient

c)

Likert Scale

d)

Effect size

50.

Which of the following concepts describes the learning process experienced by Dr. Abram’s patients?

a)

Stimulus generalization

b)

Biological preparedness

c)

Primary reinforcement

d)

Habituation

51.

Which of the following is a conclusion that Dr. Abrams can make about exposure therapy and anxiety based on the data?

a)

Counterconditioning causes anxiety to increase

b)

Repeated exposure to anxiety-inducing stimuli reduces anxiety

c)

Exposure therapy leads to spontaneous recovery of previously extinct relaxation responses

d)

Exposure therapy causes anxiety to decrease by presenting the patients with negative reinforcement.

52.

A teenager would most probably draw on which of the following to recall her tenth birthday party?

a)

Episodic memory

b)

Semantic memory

c)

Echoic memory

d)

Eidetic imagery

53.

Which of the following describes one of the functions of the temporal lobe of the brain?

a)

It is where motor control occurs.

b)

It is where decision making happens.

c)

It is where low-level visual features are processed.

d)

It is where declarative memories are stored.

54.

What conclusion can be drawn from the data presented in the figure about sensitivity to teratogens during prenatal development?

a)

Teratogens do not affect prenatal development of external genitalia.

b)

The arms and legs are susceptible to defects due to teratogens throughout all of prenatal development.

c)

The time period of 3 weeks to 9.5 weeks poses the greatest sensitivity to teratogens for development of teeth.

d)

Teratogens are least likely to impact the development of the heart after 9 weeks.

55.

A teacher gave a standardized test to students measuring their achievement in school. A student’s test score of 86 is at the 42nd percentile. This means that this student has which of the following?

a)

Answered 86 percent of the test items correctly

b)

Scored the same as 42 of her fellow students

c)

Scored the same as or higher than 42 percent of her fellow students

d)

Scored the same as or higher than 58 percent of her fellow students

56.

The graph is an illustration of which of the following?

a)

The testing effect

b)

Metacognition

c)

Interleaved practice

d)

Weber’s law

57.

A researcher is interested in measuring adrenaline levels in male subjects and then comparing those levels to each participant’s corresponding level of aggression. The researcher takes blood samples from each male participant to identify their adrenaline levels, and then gives each participant a survey that measures aggression. The results of the study indicate that higher levels of adrenaline were associated with higher rates of aggression.

Which of the following best describes why the researcher cannot report a causal relationship in this study?

a)

There was no manipulation of an independent variable.

b)

The sample was not large enough to be representative.

c)

There is no operational definition of aggression.

d)

There is no reliable way to measure testosterone in the subjects.

58.

A major university develops an assessment that is meant to provide data on whether potential students will be successful at the university level. If there is a relationship between the results of the assessment and student success, that will best indicate that the assessment has

a)

external validity

b)

content validity

c)

predictive validity

d)

standardization

59.

Dr. Kerry studies the relationship between age and physical agility. Which of the following graphs shows an example of the likely strong negative correlation between these variables?

a)

b)

c)

d)

60.

In a classic study, a group of rats learned to run through a maze to obtain food, and another group of rats explored the maze without receiving food. Some time later, the researcher compared the two groups of rats to determine if both groups would find the food at the end of the maze. According to the researcher, the untrained rats found the food at the end of the maze as quickly as the trained rats as a result of

a)

latent learning

b)

observational learning

c)

counterconditioning

d)

aversive conditioning

61.

Identify the research method used in the study

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62.

State the operational definition of the interruption in the teaching phase.

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63.

Describe what the statistically significant difference in means indicates for how long children paid attention to the action in the video

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64.

Identify one ethical guideline described in the study. Describe one way the researchers in the study applied this ethical guideline.

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65.

Explain the extent to which the research findings may or may not be generalizable using specific and relevant evidence from the study.

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66.

Explain how at least one of the research findings supports or refutes the idea that disruptions can hinder memory

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67.

Question 1: Using the sources provided, develop and justify an argument about the relationship between being in an ordered or cluttered environment and creativity.

A. Propose a specific and defensible claim based in psychological science that responds to the question.

B. (i) Support your claim using at least one piece of specific and relevant evidence from one of the sources.

B (ii) Explain how the evidence from part B (i) supports your claim using a psychological perspective, theory, concept, or research finding learned in AP Psychology.

C. (i) Support your claim using an additional piece of specific and relevant evidence from a different source than the one that was used in part B (i).

C (ii) Explain how the evidence from part C (i) supports your claim using a different psychological perspective, theory, concept, or research finding learned in AP Psychology than the one that was used in part B (ii).

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