AP Psychology APQs
7. A moviegoer who cannot identify the name of a film star remembers the name when a friend reviews a list of stars. This incident illustrates which two concepts in human memory?
Recall and recognition (E)
6. Which of the following is true about rods and cones?
Rods facilitate blank-and-white vision and cones facilitate color vision (A)
74. A person closes a window to shut down traffic noise. The reduction in noise leads the person to close the window every day. This is an example of
negative reinforcement (B)
97. The independent variable in this study is the
noise level (B)
8. Dam always returns after owning home to see if he licked the door. He always luck the door, but he thinks about whether or not he licked the door until he has checked. Dan's behavior is an example of?
obsessive-compulsive disorder (E)
31. An example of an episodic memory is the memory of
one's high school graduation (A)
69. A researcher asks a young child what she did yesterday. The child replies, "I goed to the park." This i best described as an example of
overregularization of grammar rules (A)
95. Noam Chomsky hypothesized that humans learn language through
an innate language acquisition device (B)
47. Which of the following scatterplots depicts the most predictive negative correlation between two variables?
(C)
92. The quotation below is consistent with the views of which of the following schools of psychology?
(E)
93. Item 93 was not scored
-
99. Which of the following correlation coefficients most likely represents
-.4 (D)
24. Ben normally sleeps from 10:00 P.M. to 7:00 A.M. In which of the following time periods would he experience the LEAST amount of REM sleep?
10:00 P.M. and 11:00 P.M. (A)
59. In a normal distribution, approximately what percent of the scores occur within one standard deviation above and below the mean?
68% (D)
89. Which of the following is the best example of social inhibition?
A person who is a poor bowler begins to bowl even worse than usual when several friends are watching (E)
17. Which of the following is a measure of central tendency that is most influenced by extreme scores?
Mean (C)
29. Stimulation of the sympathetic nervous system most frequently results in which of the following?
Acceleration of heart and breathing rates and dilation of pupils (A)
55. A child believes that all birds can fly, yet comes to realize that a penguin is a bird. Which of the following terms was used by Jean Piaget to refer to this developmental process of changing one's ways of thinking to incorporate new information?
Accommodation (A)
84. Which classic study forms the basis for social (observational) learning?
Albert Bandura . . Bobo doll(E)
94. Which of the following best describes the representativeness heuristic?
An estimate of the likelihood of an event based on how well it matches a typical example (A)
44. Kevin laughs when others are injured by his thoughtless pranks and shows little regard for the feelings or well-being of others. He has been in trouble with the police and other authority figures a number of times. Which of the following disorder would best describe Kevin's behavior?
Antisocial personality disorder (B)
56. Which of the following best represents a humanistic explanation for an anxiety disorder?
Anxiety results when an individual experiences a gap between his ideal self and his real self (E)
51. Of the following, which theory of motivation emphasizes the urge for an optimal level of stimulation?
Arousal (C)
85. A mother gives her child an orange for the first time. The child rolls it along the table and says, "ball." Which of the following Piagetian processes would account for this behavior?
Assimilation (D)
25. Aversion therapy to eliminate undesirable behaviors is most likely to be used by which of the following types of therapists?
Behavioral (A)
41. The school psychologist observes Johnny in class, nothing the number of times he disrupts the class on a particular day. The school psychologist then instructs the teacher to ignore Johnny when he misbehaves and to praise him when he is good. This method of handling Johnny is an example of which of the following behaviors?
Behavioral (B)
42. In the treatment of patients, which of the following psychologists made no attempt to offer formal diagnosis, advice, or interpretation of patients' unconscious motives?
Carl Rogers (A)
33. The ability of the human visual system to barely detect a candle flame at a distance of about 30 miles on a clear, dark knight is an example of
an absolute threshold (A)
18. The DSM-IV-TR includes which of the following?
Classification and diagnosis of each type of mental disorder (D)
62. Janet believes her brother Ralph is depressed because he has a distorted view of reality: he has unrealistically negative thoughts. Which of the following theories comes closest to describing Janet's orientation to abnormal behavior?
Cognitive (E)
79. The Schachter-Singer theory of emotion includes a component NOT discussed in the James-Lange theory. What is this component?
Cognitive labeling (D)
39. A therapist who helps a client replace irrational thoughts with alternative patterns of thinking is using which of the following techniques?
Cognitive restructuring (A)
27. Which of the following is LEAST likely to be used in research on personality?
Conservation tasks (E)
54. Dr. Williams is a therapist who believes that his client's depression is caused by internalized anger and other intrapsychic conflicts. Of which psychological perspective is Dr. Williams most likely a proponent?
Psychoanalytic (E)
65. Of the following, which is the best example of divergent thinking in problem solving?
Devising as many solutions as possible (A)
38. A person leaves her current home, moves to a new location, takes on a new identity, and has little or no memory of her former life. According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV-TR), which of the following diagnoses is most appropriate?
Dissociative fugue (D)
4. Rapid eye movement (REM) sleep is highly call added with which of the following?
Dreams (B)
70. Which of the following is the phase of Hans Selye's general adaptation syndrome wherein individuals are most vulnerable to illness, collapse, and even death?
Exhaustion (C)
40. A Child has learned that her grandparents ignore rather than reward her tantrums. Which of the following operant principles are the grandparents using to control the child's behavior?
Extinction (D)
82. A researcher gave identical puzzles to five-year-old children in two groups, group A and group B. The children in group a were promised candy if they completed the puzzles quickly and well. The children in group B were not promised a reward but were encouraged to do their best if they could. If the researcher argues that overjustification occurred, which of the following most likely happened during the experiment?
Group A did not work as hard or as well as group B and would be less likely to spontaneously work on similar puzzles in the future. (D)
34. When members of a group who tend to agree on an issue more extreme in their opinion after the issue is discussed, which of the following has taken place?
Group polarization (E)
57. According to Abraham Maslows' hierarchy of needs, which of the following needs to be first met before belongingness and love become important? I. Safety needs II. Esteem needs III. Self-actualization needs IV. Physiological needs
I and IV only (B)
71. Match the Roman numerals in the table above with the appropriate terns in signal detection theory.
I: Miss II: False Alarm III: Hit IV: Correct Rejection (A)
63. Which of the following lends the most support to the view that early explorers undertook their explorations to gain wealth and fame?
Incentive theorists (D)
67. The five-factor theory of personality (The Big Five) does NOT include which of the following characteristics?
Intelligence (A)
77. Which of the following did Alfred Adler suggest is the primary driving force in the development of personality?
Overcoming the inferiority complex (B)
78. Which of the following is true regarding cross-cultural studies on attributional tendencies?
People in individualistic cultures are more likely to commit the fundamental attribution error than people in collectivist cultures (C)
45. Client: "I've been feeling totally worthless, like I never do anything right." Therapist: "I guess you feel that way a lot, don't you? That you're no good. It's hard to have feelings like that." Which of the following types of therapy would be likely to involve the exchange above?
Person-centered therapy (E)
28. Which gland of the endocrine system controls the activity of other glands?
Pituitary (D)
100. Computer-generated color images of the brain that provide information about glucose metabolism are produced by which of the following techniques?
Positron-emission tomography (D)
48. Which of the following psychoactive drugs works by inhibiting the reuptake of serotonin?
Prozac (E)
10. Sheet constant exposure to a stimulus, or nerve cells fire less frequently. This can be explained by which of the following?
Sensory adaptation (B)
30. The experience of an emotion as described by the James-Lange theory, would follow which order?
Stimulus, arousal, emotion (A)
68. Which of the following is a hormone that is most directly related to human sex drive?
Testosterone (B)
23. Keisha recently lost the sight in her left eye. In which of the following situations would Keisha NOT be able to judge depth?
Throwing a ball to a friend (C)
1. The validity of a personality test is best indicated by which of the following?
The correlation between test scores and some other relevant measure (A)
49. A market researcher is interested in ascertaining which of two possible packages is more likely to entice buyers to purchase a new brand of chocolate-chip cookie. In this study, which of the following pairs represents the independent and dependent variables respectively?
The different sales of packages; total sales for each of the packages (E)
3. Dr. Lewis decided to study the television viewing habits of her students and therefore demanded that they complete and return a survey regarding their viewing habits. Which of the following ethical principles was clearly violated in this study?
The right to refuse to participate in the study (D)
13. Two groups of participants in a study are presented a lots of 20 words. The first group is told to count the number of capital letters in the words and the second group is told to think of the definition of each word. When both groups are asked to recall the word lists, which of the following is most likely to occur?
The second group will recall more words than the first group (D)
21. A researcher shows a picture to a volunteer, the picture features a woman in the foreground and an older man, looking over her shoulder, in the background. The volunteer is asked to "tell a story" about the picture. The researcher assumes that the volunteer will project his own unconscious feelings into the story he tells. This is an example of which of the following tests?
Thematic Apperception Test or TAT (D)
16. Which of the following is true of individuals who experience severe withdrawl symptoms when they abruptly stop using a drug that they have been taking for a long time?
They are physically dependant on the drug (A)
88. Which of the following is generally true of Louis Terman's longitudinal study of intellectually gifted children?
They led happy and fulfilling lives (D)
72. According to Davis McClelland, which of the following is true of individuals who have a strong need for achievement?
They seek out tasks that are moderately difficult (A)
53. Which of the following is true of persons with schizophrenia?
They typically experience onset in late adolescence or early adulthood (D)
52. Research suggest the ability to cope with stress in everyday situations is closely related to a person's
ability to predict and control potential stressors (B)
64. Maturation differs from learning in that developmental changes sue to maturation
are relatively independent of environmental factors (A)
5. Rhoda sometimes experiences periods of major depression. At other times she is extremely talkative and active, appears to be in a euphoric mood, gotta sure without sleeping, and reports that get thoughts are racing. The most likely diagnosis of Rhoda's condition is
bipolar disorder (A)
87. The semicircular canals, located in the inner ear, provide important information about the
body's posture and head position (C)
12. Tension from an inconsistency between an individual's attitudes and behavior is
cognitive dissonance (A)
2. A group of students perceived a stationary point of light in a dark room as a moving object. When asked later how far the light had moved, their responses increased in similarity as they heard each others' estimates. This outcome was a demonstration of
conformity (C)
26. A bundle of nerve fibers that interconnects the two brain hemispheres is the
corpus callosum (C)
50. Although it can produce undesirable side effects, electroconvulsive thrapy (ECT) has been shown to be most effective in the treatment of
depression (A)
15. A person who is fearful of rattlesnakes but not garden snakes is exhibiting
discrimination learning (B)
20. The common tendency to assume that the beliefs, values, attitudes, or actions of one's own group are superior to those of other groups is called
enthnocentrism (D)
37. A researcher conducts an experiment to test the claim that new drug Y is more effective than standard drug X in inhibiting arousal. The researcher randomly assigns participants to receive drug Y or drug X and subsequently measures arousal. In the experiment, participants receiving drug Y constitute the
experimental group (C)
81. A fifty-two year old woman notices a decrease in her ability to solve unfamiliar problems quickly and form new concepts although she feels confident in recalling and using familiar information. This is most likely do to a decline in
fluid intelligence (D)
86. A young couple was having a picnic outdoors when a sudden rainstorm approached. They became soaked, because they did not think to use their plastic tablecloth for protection from the rain. Their oversight best illustrates
functional fixedness (D)
36. A therapist who uses systematic desensitization to help a child overcome a white rabbit phobia will probably begin treatment by
having the child list a hierarchy of white, fuzzy objects (C)
14. The section of the brain considered most vital to the initiation of feeding behaviors is the
hypothalamus (B)
75. Classical conditioning is most efficient when the unconditioned stimulus (UCS)
immediately follows the conditioned stimulus (CS) (A)
73. Long-term potentiation is best described as
increased efficiency of synaptic transmission between certain neurons following learning (D)
32. The strongest support for the hereditary basis of personality comes from research techniques that use
measurements of behavioral similarities of identical twins reared apart (C)
46. The frustration-aggression hypothesis views aggression as
reactive (D)
43. In an emergency situation, the adrenal glands secrete hormones that cause all of the following EXCEPT
reduced mood swings (D)
60. Jamal receives a Full Scale IQ score of 125 on the Stanford-Binet Intelligece Scales. This score indicates that he
scored more than one standard deviation above the mean of the test (D)
Most professionals from the United Sates rate themselves better in performance and competence than their average peer. This is an example of 83. o
self-serving bias (D)
91. According to Erik Erikson's theory of development, the key concern of early adulthood is
sharing intimacy with another (D)
58. When Stanley Milgram asked psychiatrists to predict how far participants would go in administering shock in his original demonstration on obedience to authority, the psychiatrists
significantly underestimated the level (C)
80. When a teacher compares the performance of her students on the even- and odd-numbered questions in a multiple choice test, she is determining
split-half reliability (B)
11. The reappearance, after a rest period, of an extinguished conditioned response is called
spontaneous recovery (E)
22. In "Baby X" studies, researchers alternately dressed an infant in typical boys' or girls' clothing. Adult who were asked to play with the infant treated the baby in boys' clothing in a generally rougher manner then when asked to play with the same infant dressed in girls' clothing. The behavior is the result of
stereotyping (A)
35. In neurons, neurotransmitters are released at the
synaptic vesicles (E)
98. The researcher's conclusion that p=.05 most likely indicates
that the difference between the two groups is statistically significant (D)
19. Gender typing is best described as
the acquisition of the roles associated with distinctions between male and female (E)
90. The news of a plane crash causes a couple to cancel their plane reservation and drive 1,000 miles in their car instead, even though they know that fatal automobile accidents are much more common than airplane accidents. The couple's decision mainly involes
the availability heuristic (D)
61. Jessie and a friend are driving in rush-hour highway traffic when a car suddenly cuts in front of them in order to reach an unmarked exit ramp. Jessie's passenger points out that the circumstances may have required the other driver to do so, while Jessie loudly criticizes the personal qualities of the other driver. Jessie's response is best explained by
the fundamental attribution error (B)
9. According to Lawrence Kohlberg, children at the first level of moral reasoning make judgements about right and wrong on the basis of
the likelihood of punishment (D)
76. The process of remembering several pieces of information by mentally associating an image of each with a different location is a mnemonic device known as
the method of loci (B)
66. The gate control theory attempts to explain how
the nervous system blocks or allows pain signals to pass to the brain (C)
96. The dependent variable in this study is
the problem-solving test scores (C)