AP Psychology: Unit 1B (Practice Test)

Rachel plays on the high school basketball team. Her scores for the season are 4, 6, 6, 9, 10, 12, 15, and 19. Which of the following is the range of Rachel's scores?

15.

Exam Scores: 8, 6, 5, 10, 5, 7, 1, 5, 10. A student who scored at the mode would have how many points?

5.

Exam Scores: 8, 6, 5, 10, 5, 7, 1, 5, 10. Which of the following is the median score?

6.

A person displays a set of rare behaviors that psychologists had not known about previously, because nobody had ever shown them before. The best strategy to investigate the nature of those behaviors is...?

A case study.

To minimize experimenter bias, researchers should use...?

A double-blind design.

A research group conducted a study investigating the connection between self-reported number of hours slept in a given week and scores on a happiness measure. Based on the scatterplot above, the group can report that there is...?

A positive correlation.

Research finds that, in general, the higher an incoming college student scores on a given test, the higher the student's college grade point average (GPA). Which of the following best describes this relationship?

A positive correlation.

Researchers have found a negative correlation between income and dental problems. What conclusion can be correctly be drawn from this statement?

As income increases, the likelyhood of dental problems decreases.

Which of the following is a term for a variable that researchers do not control and that can affect the results of a study?

Confounding variable.

What procedure can reduce problems associated with the use of deception by a researcher?

Debriefing.

Which of the following research approaches would be best for testing the hypothesis that the prescence of certain odors causes people to gamble more?

Experimental.

There is a strong positive correlation between ice cream sales and instances of snakebites. Which of the following is the most likely explanation for this correlation?

Hot weather is related to both ice cream sales and snake activity.

A researcher randomly assigned boys and girls to each of two groups. One group watched a violent television program while the other group watched a nonviolent program. The children were observed during a period of free play, and the incidence of aggressive behavior was recorded for each group. What is the dependent variable in this study?

Incidence of aggressive behavior.

A survey shows that children who have encyclopedias in their homes earn better grades in school than children whose homes lack encyclopedias. The researcher concludes that having encyclopedias at home improves grades. This conclusion is erroneous primarily because the researcher has incorrectly...?

Inferred causation from correlation.

Which of the following best describes the graph above?

Negatively skewed distribution.

In a distribution of a class's test scores, a large number of students received high scores while fewer students received low scores. The distribution of the test scores is best described as being...?

Negatively skewed.

A disadvantage of longitudinal studies is that...?

Participants who drop out during the course of the study may be different in important ways from ones who don't drop out.

An illusory correlation is best defined as a...?

Perceived relationship where one does not exist.

A psychologist gives the same test to a class of students at the beginning of the day and again at the end of the school day. The extent to which test scores are similar across the two administrations demonstrates which of the following test properties?

Reliability.

In order to yield information that is generalizable to the population from which it was drawn, a sample must be...?

Representative of the population.

In developmental psychology, one advantage of cross-sectional over longitudinal studies is that cross-sectional research...?

Requires comparatively little time.

Standard deviation is a measure of how much...?

Scores in a group differ from the mean of that group.

If the outcome of a study is statistically significant, it means that...?

The results are unlikely to be obtained if there is no difference between the control group and the experimental group.

The results of a correlational study involving student volunteers in a psychology laboratory might not apply to the general population because...?

The sample is not randomly chosen, and therefore may not be a representative sample.

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

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

It is important for researchers to use precise operational definitions when...?

They want to be able to replicate the experiment.

A researcher randomly assigned boys and girls to each of two groups. One group watched a violent television program while the other group watched a nonviolent program. The children were observed during a period of free play, and the incidence of aggressive behavior was recorded for each group. What is the independent variable in this study?

Type of television program viewed.

Marjorie's little brother tends to bother her when he is bored. Marjorie wants to figure out which toy will keep her brother occupied the longest so he will not bother her. She conducts a study where each day at 6P.M. for a week she gives her brother a different toy and on one of the days she gives him no toys to play with. She measures the amount of time he spends playing with each toy before he comes to bother her. Which of the following is the independent variable in this example?

Type of toy.

A psychological researcher designs a study to determine whether positive feedback affects self-esteem. The researcher requires each participant to toss twenty coins into a coffee can that is three feet away. Half of the participants are told that their performance is superior, and the other half are told that their performance is well below average. Although some of the participants want to quit tossing coins after a few attempts, they are told that once they begin the study they have to complete it. After the coin toss, participants take a test measuring self-esteem. Following the test, all participants are debriefed and told that the information about their performance was false. Results of the study indicate that participants who are told their performance is well below average report lower levels of self-esteem than do those who are told their performance is superior. Which of the following violations of ethical guidelines occurs in the study?

Violation of the right to withdraw.

When is it permissible for a psychologist to share a client's test scores with another person?

When the client provides written permission to share results.