AP Psychology Questions

Mr. Gregg wants to help his second-grade students improve their reading skills. He tests the students with 20 reading comprehension questions at the beginning of the year. Every week throughout the year he gives the students 30 minutes of reading comprehension tips. He tests the students at the end of the year with 20 reading comprehension questions that are similar in difficulty to those on the original test. He finds that the students' reading comprehension has increased and concludes that his tips worked. Which of the following describes the most significant problem with Mr. Gregg's study? Responses

Mr. Gregg failed to account for changes in the students' maturity.

Dr. Wilson, who teaches engineering classes, is interested in learning about how lack of sleep affects performance. What would be the best way to ensure that her findings are generalizable to all the students at her university?

Surveying every tenth student listed in the university directory about their sleep habits

What is the primary advantage of conducting a survey rather than using other types of research methods? Responses

Surveys can gather information from a diverse representation of and a large number of people.

A researcher was interested in studying the effects of a new medication on depression. One group received the new medication and another group received a standard medication for depression. The researcher asked participants to answer a series of questions rating their mood levels before and after six weeks of taking the medications. Which of the following is the control condition in this study?

The group receiving the standard medication

Samantha experienced a traumatic brain injury and afterward began to exhibit bizarre symptoms that no one had ever documented before. The best research method to study Samantha would be

a case study

Dr. Rodriguez is interested in finding out if stress levels throughout the year have a relationship with students' grades. The research method she most likely used is

a correlational study

When seeking approval to conduct an experiment using participants from her college psychology course, a student researcher should

apply to the institutional review board at the university

Audra is working on a puzzle book and comes across the following figure. The Gestalt law that would affect Audra's perception of the picture above is influenced by the law of

Closure

2, 2, 2, 4, 6, 8, 9, 10, 12, 14, 16 What is the range of the numbers above?

14

7, 5, 10, 4, 4 What is the median of the numbers above?

5

Which of the following is true of the American Psychological Association? Responses

It addresses a number of ethical guidelines for the practice of psychology.

Kara works as a dog trainer. She reads a new book that describes some unusual training methods, and she wants to test them out on the dogs she works with. She assigns each dog to one of two groups by picking a number out of a hat. Half the dogs are assigned to one group, and half the dogs are assigned to the other group. For a month, she trains one group using her old methods and the other group using the unusual methods. At the end of the month, Kara records that the dogs that were trained with her old methods obey her 80 percent of the time and those that were trained with the unique methods obey her 90 percent of the time. Kara concludes that the unique methods work better. Kara can best improve her experimental design by Responses

having someone else test the dogs

Julie is interested in developing a test to measure achievement levels of middle school students. Which of the following domains of psychology is most applicable to Julie's interest?

Psychometric

Ms. Li, a principal, is interested in the differences in student behavior between two of the third-grade classrooms at her school. She asks the teachers, Mr. Williams, whose class meets at 9:00, and Ms. Walsh, whose class meets at 1:00, to record over a week the number of times students in their classrooms act out. Mr. Williams' class has 31 students, and Ms. Walsh's class has 32 students. "Acting out" is defined as students speaking without raising their hand or getting out of their seats without being given permission. At the end of the week, Mr. Williams reports that on average, his students acted out 73 times a day, and Ms. Walsh reports that, on average, her students acted out 27 times a day. Ms. Li decides that the students in Ms. Walsh's classroom act out more often than those in Mr. William's class. The results of this study are inconclusive because

The time of day was a confounding variable

The advantage of an experiment is that it allows a researcher to

infer cause and affect

Deception can be used in research when Responses

it is appropriate for what is being studied

The benefit of using inferential statistics is that it allows a researcher to

make generalizations about a population

Dr. Sampson follows the structuralist school of thought. Her techniques would most likely include

presenting a participant with an object, such as a can of soda, and having the subject report his or her perceptions or experience of the can